Michael Hennessy3301
Michael Hennessy
English 3301
Literature and the
Contemporary Reader
Description
This course addresses fundamental questions that English majors should ponder: What is literature, and why should we bother studying it rather than merely reading it for pleasure? What role does literature play in the university and in society at large? Are our responses to literature necessarily subjective, or are there objective ways of interpreting and evaluating texts? How should we read a particular piece of literature given the many ways that it might be read? This last question is at the heart of the course, and we will spend much of our time practicing ways of reading that emphasize the text itself, the author who wrote it, the reader who reads it, or the context (historical, social, cultural) in which it was written. Enrollment is about 25. Format is lecture-discussion.
Books
- Sylvan Barnet, ed., Literature for Composition,4/e (includes Shakespeare's The Tempest, a main text in the course)
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ed. Johanna Smith (Bedford case study)
- Clips from various film adaptations of Frankensteinshown in class
Requirements
- summary paper
- interpretive paper
- evaluative paper
- midterm
- final exam
- possible quizzes
designed by Scott A. Johnson