World Literatures
Click here for additional information on the World Literatures major and minors programs offered by the McAnulty College.
WDLI/CLSX 232-01
Contemporary Literature and the Classics
Classical myth and literature have served in the 20th C. as the vehicle for political dissent as well as intellectual and social revolt. Students will read and examine a number of better-known plays, poems, and short stories embodying this revolt. No prerequisite. TR 12:15-1:30 Clack
WDLI/ENGL 223W-01
World Literature Survey 1
An introduction to the literature of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, with particular emphasis on some of the ways that Christianity confronted, adapted, and absorbed classical materials. Readings will include masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature, selected early Christian writings, and such medieval works as Beowulf, Dante’s Inferno, and selections from medieval romance. TR 9:25-10:40 Beranek
WDLI/ENGL 317W-01
The Bible as Literature
The Bible is a literary treasure, compiled over a period of centuries, comprising forms as different as the erotic lyric, the courtesy book, codes of law, collections of proverbial wisdom, dynastic history, and symbolic apocalyptic visions. In this course the methods of literary criticism will be used to foster appreciation of the Bible as literature, in some cases, against the backdrop of other ancient near-eastern literary traditions. The aim of this course is neither to teach nor to displace theology, but to emphasize the ways in which biblical writers have consciously shaped their materials, and to explore ways in which the literary skills we have developed to deal with narrative and poetry can make us better readers of biblical texts. TR 3:05-4:20 Beranek
WDLI/ENGL 306W-01
Sin to Sickness: Melancholia in Literature
Throughout western history people have been fascinated and plagued by varieties of overpowering inertia. Ancient philosophy first noted a curious connection between this state of being and creativity; the desert fathers identified it as acedia, one of the seven deadly sins; in the Renaissance, as melancholia it became a matter of medicine, and the subject of numerous learned manuals; the eighteenth century traced its origins to malfunction of the spleen, and reasserted its connection with creativity, and understanding and treating depression has become a major medical (and pharmaceutical) specialty. In this course we will study a representative selection of the voluminous philosophical, theological, literary, medical, and psychological body of texts on this perennial problem. Readings will include works from various cultures across more than twenty centuries. TR 12:15-1:30 Beranek
WDLI/ MLFR/ MLGE/MLIT/ MLSP/ IR 476W - 01
Eastern and Central Europe in Film and Print
An introduction to the culture and recent history of Eastern and Central Europe, as portrayed by outstanding filmmakers and writers from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Bosnia, Serbia, the Czech Republic and other nations, with emphasis upon the major forces that have shaped the region in the late 20th Century, including the legacies of Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, World War II (Nazi oppression and the Holocaust) and Communism, ethnic strife in the Balkans, and the transition to a free market economy. Students will analyze what constitutes the primary historical metanarratives of the region (through films such as Andrei Rublev and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), gain an understanding of the what it was like to live under Communism (through novels such as Unbearable Lightness of Being and films such as Burnt by the Sun), and learn about the current challenges facing Eastern and Central Europeans as they make the transition to democracy and a free market economy. T 3:05 – 5 :40 Skutski