College of DuPage

ENGLISH 226
WORLD LITERATURE

 Laura Anschicks

COURSE MAP

Home | SYLLABUS |

 WEEK/THEME

 READINGS

 ACTIVITY

ESSAYS

WEB BOARD

1  

Introduction: What and Why

"Liberal Education" Professor's essay

What are the Humanities?
Professor's essay

Text: Preface pp lxxii-lxxiii
Appendix C: Reading and Writing About World Literature pp2750-2764
Complete the Week 1 Worksheet/Journal
Journal:
Note three strong insights from each non-fiction reading and discuss what has been insightful about it.

Make two study guide lists:
a) Things to remember about reading as you read-- helps you can give yourself.
b) Specific terms, ideas, literary characteristics and features to look for in the readings ahead.
c) See "Essay" column to the right.
See Week 1 Worksheet/Journal for other questions.
Essay 1: Preparation: (see Week 3) Begin considering how you would tell a creation story meaningful to you and your background. Find a person or two from your family or heritage whom you can interview about family history, beliefs, values, motives for being in this country, etc.
Begin brainstorming in your journal about your journey to your own identity.
Part 1: Sign in and ntroduce yourself according to instructions.
Part 2: Share one insight about three of the readings. You may also pose questions.

 2

Creation Stories and
Identity 


Ancient Mediterranean pp1-9
Hesiod,
"Theogony" Greece pp25-29 (5)
Genesis 1-11 (The Bible) pp29-42 (13)
Momaday,
"The Way to Rainy Mountain" pp2475 -2479 (5)
CHOOSE 1:
Anonymous, "Enuma Elish" Ancient Babylon pp10-22 (12)
OR
"The Navajo Creation Story" [Dine Bahane] pp1325-1337 (12)

OPTIOINAL:
Understanding Literature
Professor's essay

Goldsworthy, The Biology of Literature
Complete Week 2 Reading Worksheet
Fill in Reading Chart for Week 2
Journal: Brainstorm about heroism and what could be an epic for our time-see Essay assignment in next column
Essay 1 prep. cont'd.: Start drating your creation story patterned after Momaday's. Where did you go to find your roots? Whom can you interview? What did you find? How does it contribute to your sense of idenetity?
Due next week.
Part 1:  Share with classmates which readings engaged you most and least. Include why, two or three main insights, and any questions you might have. Respond to 3 classmates' entries.
Part 2: What does it mean to be a hero today? Is it the same for people of the times you are reading about?

 3

The World of the Hero:
The Hero and the Human Condition

What are Masterpieces?
Professor's essay
The Epic of Gilgamesh
(Anonymous) Ancient Mesopotamia pp97-140

Watch one of the following films during this and next week:

Fight Club
Lethal Weapon 1
or 2
Thelma and Louise
Braveheart

Or for those who prefer less violence:
Field of Dreams
See Study Guide for help reading.
Complete Reading Worksheet 
 
Journal:
Begin thinking about what heroism means to you. Who are your heroes? What does it mean to be a hero? What are our cultural heroes? What characteristics emerge from them that say something about our culture?

 

Essay 1 Due.


See "Journal" and
begin to conceptualize how you would write an "epic" for our time.(You will not write the epic, only discuss what it would look like.)
ePart 1: What do you find universal in The epic of Gilgamesh? List specifics and explain.
Part 2: How does the film you watched relate to the epic? In what way is it a portrait of what we value in a hero? What does it say about our culture and how we address the eternal questions?
Part 3: What other films would you recommend putting on the list for this week? Why?

 4

The World of the Hero: Twentieth Century and the Anti-Hero

Kafka's "Metamorphosis" pp2125-2159
Complete Week 4 Worksheet and Journal.
Journal: What does this story do with the concept of hero in literature? What does it say about the first part of this past century, the individual, and the person's place in relation to the eternal questions?
See Essay prep in next column for other journal ideas.
Kafka presents a totally different concept of what an "epic" might be--a tale that embodies the truths about an age. To what extent can you identify with it--why or why not? Think about this in conceptualizing your own epic for our time.
Part 1: What do you make of the story and what Kafka is trying to say?
Part 2: Does this reading relate to us at the turn of this century? Or is it bound to its time and place? Defend your answer.

  5

The World of the City:
Change and Generations; Women's Limits and Possibilities in Ancient and Not-So-Ancient Times

Antigone (Sophocles)
Greece pp228-258

"Subjects for Discussion" [Khlebnikos] pp2159-2160

"Woman" Fu Hsuan pp649-650

"Yellow Sand" [Hayashi Kyoko] 1575-1784
"The Rain Came" [Grace Ogot] 1778-1785
Complete Week 5 Worksheet and Journal.
Compose the essay.
Topic: what would an epic for our time look like? Who would be its heroes and heroines? What would be the central eternal questions and conflicts? What resolution do you foresee?
Include references to pertinent readings from the first 4 weeks of assignments (Antigone may also be referred to if it helps).
Part 1: How is Antigone contemporary?
Part 2: What do the other readings reveal about the "human condition" as it applies to women? Compare to Antigone's portrait?

 6

Ancient Roots of Spirituality

Luke 1-5, 22-24
Acts 1-2
pp450-469

South Asia: Early and Middle Periods 486-492
The Life of Buddha pp548-557

East Asia: Early and Middle Periods pp600-607
Confucius pp608-612
Lao-tzu pp612-615
Early and Classical Middle East pp930-937
Koran pp945-958r Prayer" pp2393-2395

This is a "packed" unit, so you may

Complete Reading Worksheet

In your journal,
a) Summarize the basic content of each reading in one paragraph of no more than 100 words.
b) Keep track of the actual teachings that emerge from each reading.
c) Note the eternal questions/conflicts addressed.
See accompanying Ancient Spirituality Chart for help in keeping track of the main ideas. You may submit a completed chart as the journal entry, if you wish. Otherwise, address requirements clearly in a format of your own.

Essay 2 Due

For next essay, we will probe the insights from human spiritualities from this week and apply them to what we have already observed in the ancient creation stories, Gilgamesh, Antigone. the modern stories and film assigned, and in what we will read in the next week's selections. Begin making notes on your observations.
You might wish to note in your Journal where the earlier assignments are in accord with one or more of the spiritual perspectives or where they differ. How might the characters in the previous stories have responded to any of these readings? What might the spiritual leaders represented here have to say to any of the characters we have already read?

Take your mid-term exam. Multiple choice and short answer.

Weeks 1-5 only covered.

NO WEB BOARD THIS WEEK.

 7

Collisions,
War and Uncertainty:

The basis of modern times

Anonymous, "Intriques of the Warring States" pp631-643 (12) [refer to themes in "East Asia: Early and Middle Periods (600-608), Week 5]

Medieval Europe 788-798
Dante pp877-886
Reflections/Crusades pp996-1004 (8) [refer back to "Early and Classical Middle East" for themes (930-958)]
Early Modern Europe 1078-1086
Machievelli pp1095-1101
Cervantes,
from Don Quixite pp1135-1140
Twain-
"The War Prayer"
Complete Reading Worksheet
Journal: These readings all reflect times of transition and violence from various times and places. What light do they shed on human nature, or "the human condition"? What do they have in common? What can we learn from them as a body of readings on violence, human society, and the individual human heart?
Which reading did you find most insightful. Explain fully with examples or references to specific statements, scenes, or parts of it.
Refine an essay topic that does one of the following:

a) uses the spiritual insights from Week 5 as a lens to probe selected issues in one creation story, plus Gilgamesh, Antigone, and one selection from this week's readings.
OR
b) uses the previously assigned readings (a creation story, Gilgamesh, Antigone, and one selection from this week's readings) as a "reality check"on the insights from spiritual readings.
Use any part of your journal response for this week to share with classmates and generate discussion. What questions do you have?

 8

Modern World:

China

China:
 Lu Hsun "My Old Home" pp1479-1487

Mao Tse-Tung "Tune: 'Spring in [Princess] Ch'in's Garden'" & "Loushan Pass pp1487-1488
Ping Hsin "Deliverance" pp1488-1490

Huang Ch'un-Ming "The Drowning of an Old Cat" pp1489-1506

Bei Dao, "Chords," "Declaration," "Electric Shock" pp1506-1508

 

 Essay 3 Due

 

 9

Modern World:

Africa

Latiin America

Africa:
Nadine Gordimer, "A Lion on the Freeway" pp1759-1761

Agostinho Neto, "Western Civilization" pp1761-1762

Sembene Ousmane "Love in Sandy Lane" pp1762-1766

David Diop "Close to You" pp1766-1767

John Munonye, "Pack Pack Pack" pp1767-1774

Kateb Yacine "The Deserter," "Nedjma: The poem or the sword," & "Love and Work" pp1774-1778
Latin America:
Jorge Luis Borges, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" pp2249-2260

Pablo Neruda, "The Heights of Maccu Picchu" and following poems pp2260-2266

Octavio Paz, "The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico" pp2270-2277

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Big Mama's Funeral" pp2282-2293

 

 

Web Board:
Part 1: In one developed paragraph, discuss your experience with world literature in this course and how it contributes to your "liberal education" as defined in my essay of Week 1. Use specific references to the literature and to your insights.
 
Part 2: Respond to three other people's entry's, concurring, offering differing insights, asking questions, going further in some way.

 10

Modern World

As part of your final exam, select no less than 30 pages of readings we have not been assisgned so far from any of the sections beginning with The Modern Middle East on page 1596 (see Table of Contents starting on page xiv).
 No Reading Response Worksheet this week.
Journal:
1) How the readings you have selected respond to the Eternal Questions, and
2) How they might relate to readings in two other weeks of assignments (and periods other than modern/19th-20th Centuries)

 11

 

Essay 4 Due
Part 1: What would your keep the same in the course?
Part 2: What would you change?

Take your final exam.

Combination multiple choice and short answer.

9-12 pages of formal essay

mid-term and final