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CS92PROD
Ways of Reading: Literature and/as Philosophy
ENGL 201M
Spring 2023
Section: 01  

Ways of Reading courses introduce students to the characteristics thought of as literary and the methods for studying them. This is a gateway course into the English major. Only one of the ENGL201 series may be taken for credit.

Ways of Reading courses develop strategies for careful and close reading, and techniques for the analysis of literary forms such as poetry and drama, and prose narratives such as novels and short stories. They familiarize students with some of the protocols of the literary-critical essay, examine the idea of literature as a social institution, and explore ways of connecting textual details and the world beyond the text. The ways of reading learned in the course are powerful tools for critically assessing discourses that expand far beyond the realm of literature. So while students will become adept literary critics, they also will learn quickly that to be a literary critic is to read critically and carefully all the time: in poems, novels, and plays, but also in political speech, in popular culture, and in the discourses that shape everyday life.

This course will consider what lies at the intersection of literature and philosophy. We will read philosophies of literature-texts that consider the function, context, and fundamental characteristics of literary production-alongside literary texts that foreground key philosophical questions. We will consider the literary dimensions of philosophical writing alongside the philosophical dimensions of literary writing, toward a way of reading that destabilizes the notion of a fixed boundary between the two categories.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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