One semester course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 2-4
The figure of the adolescent has become a central one in twentieth century fiction, offering recurrent experiences of isolation, displacement, shattered memory and hope, and the consequent search for identity, trust, and generativity. This course asks students to see adolescent crises not as a passing show but as a vital part of an integrated life. The questions raised by our readings' protagonists are not temporary but lasting concerns.
We focus on character analysis in our readings--how often motive is multiple and so how often personality retains its mystery. Students explore issues drawn from the human life cycle, emphasizing his healthy stages of trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity, intimacy, generativity, and integrity. They will write from personal experience on these concerns: we are seeking applied knowledge.
The diversity of adolescent experience in many cultures.
The role of pain in creating identity.
The evidence for change, growth, expanding vision across adolescence.
The strategies against isolation and for intimacy.
Thinking and questioning.
All must use analytical skills. We try to find what questions and choices are presented to the protagonists. Final papers or test questions often ask students to relate these parts, distinguish patterns, and explore how each section speaks to other moments in a work or art.
Students are often asked to consider which human crises are at work at a given moment in their life and in the art they study.
In addition, students free-write, are asked to take ideas from freewriting and pursue them to their logical conclusion. Often these freewritings are used to generate writing from experience. Two sample assignments are attached below.
Students are expected to read several poems, a play, and several novels over the course. In addition, they will view and discuss two or three films.
Listening skills are crucial to encourage class discussions of reading and experience. Notetaking skills are needed from which to write intelligently on essay tests in class. Finally, a willingness to write honestly of experience is needed to complete many of the creative assignments successfully.
Works are drawn from among:
Poems of Nikki Giovanni, Theodore Roethke, Gary Synder, Karl Shapiro
Equus, Peter Schaffer
Master Harold and the Boys, Fugard
Harold and Maude, Colin Higgins
From Rockaway, Eisenstadt
Behind the Door, Giorgio Bassani
Amador
The Elizabeth Stories, Isabel Huggan
Cat and Mouse, Gunter Grass
Letter to his Father, Kafka
"I Stand Here Ironing," Tillie Olsen
"The Lame Shall Enter First," Flannery O'Connor
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Sillitoe
The Swell Season, Joseph Skvorecky
Amongst Women, John McGahern
Floating in My Mother's Palm, Ursula Hegi
Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
Stories from the Rest of the World, Graywolf Anthology
Somehow Tenderness Survives (South African short stories)
Kite Runner, Husseini
God’s Mountain, De Luca
Rain, Gunn
Films include:
The Graduate
Hey, Babu Riba
Closely Watched Trains
Mon Oncle Antoine
Almos' a Man
400 Blows
Compose a letter to your father modeled on Franz Kafka's Letter to his Father. You need not come to the same answers he does but you might ask some similar questions. Be sure to summon several particular moments of experience with your father that reveal the nature of your relationship. Kafka's letter is over thirty pages long and was never delivered. Yours must be five. (Delivery is optional.)
Compose a story in your mother's voice delineating her vision of your life from pregnancy to now. Use Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" as your model.
One semester
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
Some knowledge of both Biblical and Classical literature is essential for understanding the literary and cultural foundations of Europe and the Americas; a foundation in these literary traditions is useful for understanding much of the ethical and intellectual basis of the West; and acquaintance with these traditions is valuable in and of itself, as many of the greatest stories, characters and imagery of Western literature come from these traditions.
While it is impossible to divorce the stories of the Bible from their religious context, the purpose of the course is to study both Biblical and Classical literature as literature, not as religious text or received truth. Thus both traditions are treated as much as possible in their original context and without religious bias.
Biblical and Classical Literature is a course whose title is self-explanatory; it is meant to give students some literary background in the works of ancient Greece and the Bible as literature, with a primary emphasis in both cases on the literary context, value and heritage from these two major sources of traditional Western culture. Some of the themes emphasized are: the tragic view of life, both Biblical and Classical; the heroic view of life, both Biblical and Classical; humanity's view of the gods, both Biblical and Classical; the differences between Biblical and Classical cultures, with special emphasis on religious beliefs and ethical doctrine; sexism and racism in both cultures; and the general influence of both cultures in our culture.
Other themes and topics arise, but they are mostly subsumed by one of these broader themes. The course is divided into one quarter of Greek literature and one quarter of Biblical literature.
The primary method in this course is reading and discussion; the importance of reading is emphasized through the semester, as many students have formed very definite impressions about both Biblical and Classical ideas without much real knowledge of those ideas. As we use only primary sources, we attempt to get students to examine their prejudices about both cultures from an objective, rational, and skeptical point of view, while always being careful not to suggest that any one way of looking at these ideas is the only "truth." Class discussions focus on reading; however, these discussions tend to get into contemporary ethical and religious subjects, especially given the variety of religious and non-religious personal beliefs in the class.
Discussion questions are often broad; classes begin with specific textual questions, but we generally end up dealing with much more abstract issues such as faith, fate, the nature of human beings' relationships with the powers that rule the world, the validity or non-validity or certain Biblical ideas. Students are urged to express their ideas clearly and forcefully, and with due concern and respect for what may be deeply held beliefs on the part of other students in the class.
The course requires nightly, often lengthy, reading assignments. There are frequent in-class essay quizzes, reading tests, and short (3-5 page) creative and expository writing assignments connected with the reading. The course also requires a good deal of verbal and listening acuity in class discussions, as described above.
Readings are selected from the following. (It is important that care be taken to have minimal repetition of readings used in other courses; therefore, these selections have been carefully complied.)
GREEKS
The Iliad or The Odyssey, Homer
The Orestia, Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus
Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus, Philoctetes, Sophocles
Medea, Herakles, The Bacchae, Alcestis, Euripides
BIBLE
Genesis 1-3; Genesis 23-50
Exodus 3; Exodus 20 ff.
Judges (Samson)
The Book of Ruth
The story of David from Samuel and Kings
selections from Psalms
selections from Isaiah
The Book of Daniel
The Book of Jonah
The Gospel According to Luke or Mark
selections from Acts
selections from Epistles
The Revelation to John (the Apocalypse)
The following is a partial bibliography. See also the bibliography for Introduction to Western Civilization and the L-S library bibliographies for Ancient Greece and the Bible.
The Greeks, H.D.F. Kitto
The Greeks and the Irrational, E.R. Dodds
Moira: Fate, Good and Evil in Greek Thought, William Chase Green
Ancient Greek Literature and Society, C.R. Beye
The Greeks Myths, Robert Graves
The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell
Greek Tragedy in Action, Oliver Taplin
The World of Odysseus, M.I. Finley
The Eating of the Gods, Jan Kott
Dictionary of Classical Antiquity, Nettleship and Sandys
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations, Cyrus Gordon
Judaism, Isadore Epstein
Life and Language in the Old Testament, Mary Ellen Chase
The Reign of the Phallus, Eva Keuls
Understanding Genesis, Nahum M. Sarna
The Wycliffe Biblical Commentary
Harper's Bible Dictionary
Key to the Bible, Wildrid J. Harrington, O.P.
A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible, Buchmann and Spiegel,
ed.
1. The Gospel According to St. Luke tells the story of Jesus of Nazareth, supposedly the Christ, and the Son of God. Compare the story of Jesus, from his birth through his death, with that of either Odysseus, Orestes, Oedipus, or David. How is the story of Jesus similar? How different? When writing your paper, treat the story of Jesus as a story; remember that he traces his descent from the House of David.
2. Write your own short "gospel," your own eyewitness account of the life of Christ from the point of view of a non-believer living in Palestine at the time of the events chronicled by Luke. What might you have thought of Jesus' ideas? his actions? his politics? Include all of this in your "gospel," at the end of which you can either accept or reject his teaching.
One semester course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-4
Drama in Production (sometimes Shakespeare in Production) merges the study of drama with actual productions; the course has resulted in productions such as Ah, Wilderness, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Oresteia , Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It. The course is designed to make plays accessible to virtually any student by careful reading and by demonstrating how a play is actually produced. We feel it is important to get as many different kinds of students involved in productions as possible, and Drama in Production gives us the opportunity to involve students in the cooperative effort of producing a play.
Students are asked to read the plays covered by the course and then to consider how those plays might be produced, either on stage, as movies, or as television. The plays are studied as text first; we then move on to various elements of production style, including setting, costume, period, props, lighting, sound, direction style, and acting style. All students must participate in the class production in some capacity, either on-stage or back-stage; each student's final exam grade is based on his or her participation in the production.
Class discussion is critical; often we discuss meaning in a script first, and then we discuss how that meaning can be brought out in a production by using the various elements of production. We also have staged readings, recitations, and scene presentations in class from plays other than the play to be produced. There is also regular academic work, including reading quizzes, test, and papers; however, all assignments are based on the discussion of actual production of a play, rather than the play as text. As stated above, the final exam assignment is a student's work on the major production in whatever capacity, including: acting, directing, lights, makeup, costume, publicity, set, business, house management, props, sound, tickets, and program. A student is graded on effort, initiative, the ability to cooperate with fellow students and staff, and her or his overall willingness to work on the production.
Students are expected to read between four and eight plays in a semester, depending on the particular playwright or playwrights being studied. There is nightly reading until production week.
There is a paper assignment on each play; sometimes students will elect to stage a scene or recite a speech instead of a paper. Students are also given essay quizzes and tests on the plays studied in class.
Any drama course involves both listening and speaking skills, whether in class discussions of production, in actual production meetings and rehearsals, or in viewing and discussing student scene presentations in class. One skill stressed is the ability to watch and listen to scenes and speeches in a theater and then discuss those scenes and speeches critically without being unkind.
We watch films of professional productions and attend appropriate presentations when possible.
Shakespeare in Production:
Midsummer Night's Dream
Winter's Tale
Twelfth Night
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
The Tempest
Merchant of Venice
Drama in Production (Courses offered in this category have included O'Neill in Production, Greek Tragedy in Production, and World Drama in Production)
Ah, Wilderness
Mourning Becomes Electra
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Strange Interlude
Desire Under the Elms
The Oresteia, Robert Lowell trans.
Oedipus the King
Electra
Hecabe
Heracles
Medea
Brand or Doll's House
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Zoo Story
Little Foxes
Waiting for Godot
The Birthday Party or The Homecoming
Ubu Roi
The Venetian Twins
Lady Windermere's Fan
1. Rationale
This course examines heroes and heroism through the literature of different cultures and eras. The range in periods is vast: From the classical age of the Greeks, Romans and Mesopotamians to our contemporary times. Thus, the reading list includes such titles as The Voyage of Argo, Oedipus Rex, The Dwarf, Persepolis, Siddartha, The Stranger and The Power of One.
One lense through which students might examine heroes and heroism is Joseph Campbell’s work with hero stories. While students may not read Campbell’s seminal works The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth, the archetypes he devises might be a template with which to examine various stories. Students might also compare and contrast different “heroic codes” and different “brands” of heroes, such as Comic, Tragic, Super and Flawed. Through examining the similarities and differences students might see the similarities among a range of cultures and eras. They may also speculate about the differences in heroes and heroic codes and what that may tell them about the place and time the stories were first written. Two basic questions students might consider are: How have the standards by which we measure heroism changed over time? How have they remained the same?
Another aspect of the course is examining anti-heroes. One question students could consider is: What qualities of these characters earn them the label anti-heroes?
2. Topics and Themes Emphasized
The course is intended to explore, through a range of literature, the ideas of the hero and the anti-hero. What is heroism? Is it possible for heroes to exist in the modern world? What is the relationship of historical situation to heroism? How can we compare heroes from various eras and countries? What role does gender play in hero stories? In connection with these questions, ethical issues arise: What is good behavior? How do we evaluate the actions of others? How do we judge others and ourselves and what standards do we use?
3. Methods
Kinds of thinking and questions asked are suggested above.
Students work as a class on reading and discussion. The kinds of questions suggested above are directed at specific texts. There is some practice in close reading of text -- concentration on a passage and careful analysis of it.
In addition, there are writing-to-learn exercises--short, in-class writing to spark discussion and questions about reading.
Students may also work in groups to formulate questions and to evaluate one another’s writing.
Short writing assignments, both creative and analytical, are used to improve critical thinking and to improve writing skills. There is concentration on developing clarity in writing; students write in class and out, look at the papers of others in the class, have individual help on their work, and do revision of their work.
Students may be introduced to Joseph Campbell’s heroic archetypes as discussed in his books, such as Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth. Study of contemporary heroes in popular culture -- films such as “Star Wars," “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and “The Matrix” -- may be helpful in introducing students to these archetypes.
4. Expectations for Students
Reading:
Students are required to do reading assignments of approximately 15-25 pages per night. The reading amount may vary, based on difficulty of reading. There is a range of difficulty in the reading chosen.
Writing:
There are frequent reading quizzes which require short answer to short paragraphs to short essays.
Students write short papers on each thematic unit or major work. Some work is done in class on how to compose these papers, and for some papers students are expected to hand in drafts for comment before the final “product.”
Students also do frequent in-class writing that is both graded and non-graded.
Speaking and listening:
Students work in groups for discussion of literature and discussion of writing. Students are expected to participate both as listeners and as speakers in class.
Other: The course involves some film study and media analysis, as well as vocabulary study from the reading.
5. Reading List and Other Materials
Works will be chosen from the following:
Alice in Wonderland
Death of a Salesman
The Dwarf
Gilgamesh
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Inherit the Wind
Iphigenia in Aulis
The Moon Is Down
Mother Night
Nectar in a Seive
Oedipus the King
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
Other Voices, Other Vistas
Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha
Persepolis
The Power of One
Richard III
selected myths
Siddhartha
"A Simple Heart"
The Stranger
The Swallows of Kabul
The Palm-Wine Drinkard
Tsotsi
Voyage of Argo
The Watchmen
White Tigers (short story by Kingston)
The White Tiger (novel by Adiga)
Films:
47 Ronin
Antonia's Line
Brother from Another Planet
Casablanca
Cry Freedom
Cyrano de Bergerac
Garden State
Ghost in the Shell
Harold and Maude
Hero
King of Hearts
Looking for Richard
The Matrix
My Left Foot
Norma Rae
Pan's Labyrinth
Sommersby
Spiderman 2
Rebel Without a Cause
Star Wars
The Bicycle Thief
The Great Santini
The Usual Suspects
Umberto D
The Wizard of Oz
6. Bibliography
Ancient Myths, ed. Goodrich
The Enduring Legacy, ed. Broun
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
Holocaust Years: Society on Trial, ed. Chartock and Spence
The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
Sunsongs, ed. vanOver
The Theme of the Hero, Pickett
Sample Assignments
1. What about Peekay [the hero in The Power of One] makes you want him to succeed?
2. Explore the significance and symbolism of the final scene in The Power of One?
3. What do you suspect Piccoline [the anti-hero and narrator of The Dwarf] is NOT telling you?
4. What do you find strange about Meurseault [the anti-hero of The Stranger]? And what do you NOT find strange about Meurseault?
5. Consider the boy and his father in "The Bicycle Thief." Do you see either one or both of them as heroic? Explain.
6. Write a story about what happens next in "The Bicycle Thief" -- that is, after the end of the movie.
7. Spend five minutes a day practicing quiet reflection in the style of Siddhartha. Record in writing your experience.
8. Do something good for somebody you don't usually do. Then, write about how the person reacted and how doing the good deed made you feel.
One semester course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 2-4
This course is designed to concentrate on the study of literature through drama, as well as to offer some elementary instruction in theater arts. It is a World Literature course, although some American and British plays will be used. The main idea of Ideas in Drama is to acquaint students with some selections from major dramatic literature through use of reading, discussion, papers, presentations, and theater exercises.
Ideas in Drama is meant to be offered, when possible, in conjunction with any productions of local theaters and with LSB Players productions being staged during the semester the course is offered. The main theme of the course is what makes a successful play; this includes topics such as the study of text, character, setting, special effects, and staging devices, including various acting styles.
Class discussions and activities will also center on what makes a successful play; sample assignments include:
--A director's notebook about a scene from a play being studied in class, meaning a set of notes about how a student would direct a production of part of that play, including gestures, blocking, and primarily interpretation of the scene.
--A technical notebook about a scene from a play being studied in class, meaning a set of notes about how a student would visualize a production of part of that play, including sets, lights, costumes, special effects, and music.
--A character sketch of one of the main characters in a play, either from the point of view of a literary critic or the point of view of an actor preparing the role.
--"Review" of hypothetical or real productions of the plays being taught in the course--real productions, if possible, such as LSB players productions.
--Traditional literary essays about the plays, concentrating on analytical issues (see appendix for Approaches to Analysis).
--Presentations by small groups of students of scenes from plays studied.
Students are not expected to be accomplished actors. However, they are expected to be willing to be involved in theater games. class discussions, staging scenes, and improvisations.
As one can see from the list above, students are required to approach plays not only as literature but also as scripts to be performed. This requires some elementary instruction about blocking, stage directions, special effects, and acting and directing techniques. Theater games are used, and any current productions are discussed in some detail. Students are also given nightly reading assignments and long-term paper and presentation assignments; there are frequent reading quizzes and some reading tests as well.
The reading list will vary some from year to year, depending on availability and productions. The following is a possible list from which a semester's plays might be selected:
Starting Drama (text)
"The Virtuous Burglar," Fo
The Visit, Durrenmatt
The Venetian Twins, Goldoni
"Picnic on the Battlefield," Arrabal
Lady Windemere's Fan, Wilde
Marching for Fausa, Bandele
Fires in the Mirror, Smith
The Investigation, Weiss
Doll's House, Ibsen
R.U.R., Capek
Modern One-Act Plays, ed.Cassady (basic text)
Ten Little Indians, Christie
The Little Foxes, Hellman
"The Real Inspector Hound," Stoppard
Four Plays by Ionesco
Kongi's Harvest, Soyinka
"Zoo Story" and "The American Dream," Albee
Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Fo and Rame
Antigone, Anouilh
Films:
Fawlty Towers
Dr. Strangelove
Cyrano (excerpts)
One major text used in preparing the class is Improvisation for the Theater, by Viola Spolin. There are various other theater histories and textbooks on technical theater available in the Rogers Theater office which can be consulted during the course.
One semester course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
The purpose of the course is a study of one of the major literary forms in detail. The course may be organized in any of the following ways: novels chosen to represent different areas of the world; novels chosen to reflect similar themes; novels chosen to reflect important historical issues; novels chosen to reflect similar characters; novels chosen to reflect comparable narrative style and structure.
The relationship of form and structure in a novel necessarily relates to forms and structures in society; patterns and themes in fiction relate to social patterns and themes. Thus a study of the novel lends itself to clarifying knowledge of self and society and to using and developing critical and creative skills necessary for a person's social and intellectual development.
• Consideration of a form and structure (plot, character, setting, theme) as specific means to achieving an author's stated purposes.
• Alienation as a central 20th Century theme
• Individual struggles to make meaning
• Novel as mirror
• Novel as prism
• Novel as microscope
• Conformity vs. Resistance
• The role of fiction
• The power of storytelling
• The role of memory
Students are expected to initiate discussion or to make observations based on close reading of the text. Typical teacher-initiated questions include:
• What does the author require of you, the reader?
• How does the writer's use of language affect your relationship with the characters?
• How does the writer reveal her or his theme?
• What questions are left unanswered by the text?
• What methods does the author use to develop plot?
• What do the characters reveal about human nature? How?
• Are you able to detect any philosophical bias in the novel?
• What of the author's life is revealed in the novel?
• To what extent do you share the author's world view?
Reading: Nightly assignments, number of pages depends on the density of the text.
Writing: Journal writing, short answer quizzes, essay quizzes, short papers, critical essays. Generally, for the critical essays, students are encouraged to develop their own topics.
Listening and speaking: Part of a student's grade is based on her or his class participation. Students are expected to initiate discussion; panel as well as individual oral presentations are assigned.
Most of the novels taught will not be from America or England. They will be selected from the following:
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
The Attack, Khadra
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Sijie
Beloved, Morrison
Blindness, Saramago
Broken April, Kadare
The Clown, Boll
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton
Death in Venice, Mann
Demian, Hesse
Dr. Zhivago, Pasternak
Dreaming in Cuban, Garcia
The English Patient, Ondjaatje
The Fall, Camus
Fontamara, Silone
The God of Small Things, Roy
The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood
The Journey of Ibn Fatouma, Mahfouz
The Last Man, Camus
Life of Pi, Martel
A Long, Long Way, Barry
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez
The Palace of Dreams, Kadare
Palace Walk, Mahfouz
A Pale View of the Hills, Ishiguro
The Path to the Nest of Spiders, Calvino
Silence, Endo
The Tin Drum, Grass
Voices in the Evening, Ginzburg
Waiting for the Barbarians, Coetzee
The Wanderer, Alain-Fournier
You Can't Get Lost in Capetown, Wicombe
Films:
Amistad (select scenes)
The Bicycle Thieves
Crime and Punishment (select scenes from Lev Kulidzhanov's version)
Europa, Europa
Gallipoli
The Mission
Open City
Paradise Now
The Red Violin (select scenes)
Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
1. Each of the novelists we've read this semester has used character as the primary means of exploring aspects of "the human heart in conflict with itself." Choose any one character from any of the novels we have read and write a critical essay in which you explore the nature of the character's conflict, the facets of that conflict, the resolution of the conflict (s), and your assessment of the success or failure of the specific conflict (s) as a way of illuminating, exposing, and exploring the human soul and spirit.
2. Often characters appear simply good or bad; upon closer observation, however, it is usually true that the author's intent may have been to expose the vast grey landscape of humanity. Use two characters from the reading we have done to explore idea. Consider how the character appears initially, and then how, through the course of the novel, you came to see the ambiguities of the character through his or her thoughts, actions, and interactions with other characters.
3. Community or absence of community was a force in all the novels we read. Create a working definition of community and write an essay in which you explore its significance in at least two of the novels we've read.
4. Explore the different types of "babbling" in parts I and II of Crime and Punishment.
5. In what way(s) is The Palace of Dreams subversive?
6. Why in Silence does Rodrigues fixate on the image of Christ in Borso San Sepulchro rather than on the previously mentioned images of Christ: Christ as Shepherd, Christ in the eastern Church, and Christ the King?
7. Explore the mother/child relationships in Beloved. You may want to consider the relationship between Sethe and her mother, Ella and her child, etc.
8. How does Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" inform your reading of Saramago's Blindness?
Irish Literature (Revised 9/09)
One Semester Course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
1. Rationale:
This course offers students the opportunity to discover and explore the rich and multi-textured literature of Ireland. Since the history and culture of Ireland is virtually inextricable from the literature, the course introduces the students to the various facets of Irish life, past and present. The course is not an exhaustive study of Irish literature and history; it is an introduction. About half of the course focuses on the literature of the Celtic Renaissance; the other half of the course examines contemporary Irish literature. Ultimately, the course attempts to peel away the myths and stereotypes of the Irish and Ireland to reveal the complexities of Ireland’s troubled history and dynamic culture. The central question of the course is “What is Ireland?”
2. Topics and Themes:
• Beyond the Pale: The allure of the “Wild West” during the Celtic Renaissance
• Dublin City Life
• Religion
• Silence, Exile and Cunning: The exiled and self-exiled from Ireland
• Family Life
• Women in Ireland
• “The Troubles” and modern Irish history
• The intersection of Irish literature and history
• Traditional and Contemporary Music
• Language: A weapon of oppression
• The presence of the ancient Celtic culture in contemporary Irish Literature
• The Famine
3. Methods and Sample Assignments:
The primary methods are close reading, discussion, brief lectures, formal compositions, journaling, and informal “writing to learn” exercises. There may be several outside projects offering students the opportunity to explore areas not covered in class, such as non fiction works, historical events and music. Connections are made between works, historical contexts and themes in the course. As mentioned above, the guiding question is “What is Ireland?”
4. Expectations for Students:
In addition to the department-wide expectations, students are expected to be capable readers and good writers. Students are expected to come to class prepared with observations, thoughts and questions on the nightly reading. In class, students are expected to participate regularly and to listen carefully to one another. As students learn more about Ireland and its literature, they are expected to draw conclusions, make intertextual connections between, and generalizations from the reading.
Reading: Students have nightly reading that varies with the difficulty level of each text: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 20-25 pages; Felicia’s Journey, 30-35 pages, for example.
Writing: Students have regular formal and informal writing assignments. 4-6 formal compositions in the course, plus reading journals, in-class “writing to learn” exercises, and activator questions to stimulate discussion. There is a final examination. Students are expected to keep notes on the reading, lectures and class discussions.
5. Reading List and Other Materials:
Novels
Doyle, The Snapper
Doyle, A Star Called Henry
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
MacLaverty, Cal
McGahern, Amongst Women
Trevor, Felicia’s Journey
Non Fiction
Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
Synge, The Aran Islands
Poets
Eavan Boland
Greg Delanty
Seamus Heaney
Patrick Kavanaugh
Michael Longley
Derek Mahon
Paula Meehan
William Butler Yeats
Plays
Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa
Friel, Translations
Lady Gregory, “Spreading the News”
McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan
O’Casey, The Plough and the Stars
Synge, The Playboy of the Western World
Synge, Riders to the Sea
Yeats and Lady Gregory, “Cathleen ni Houlihan”
Short Stories
Doyle, “Ask Me, Ask Me, Ask Me”
Lavin, “Happiness”
Joyce, Dubliners
Kiely, “The Dogs in the Great Glen”
Moore, “An Answer from Limbo”
O’Brien, “Wilderness” and “Irish Revel”
O’Connor, “First Confession” and “Guests of the Nation”
O’Faolain, “The Man Who Invented Sin”
O’Flaherty, “The Sniper”
O’Kelly, “The Weaver’s Grave”
Films
“Bloody Sunday” (2002)
“Dancing at Lughnasa”
“The Secret of Roan Inish”
“In the Name of the Father”
“Man of Aran”
“My Left Foot”
“Playboy of the Western World” (Druid Theater Production)
Documentaries
“Language: A Loaded Weapon” (From: “The History of English” PBS Series)
“The Road to Bloody Sunday”
“Rattle and Hum” (U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” performance)
Music
Traditional and Contemporary
6. Bibliography
The following titles are useful to teacher and students alike. Many of the following titles may be suggested to students for independent reading projects.
Fiction
Binchy, Circle of Friends
Bowen, The Last September
Brown, Down all the Days
Doyle, Oh, Play That Thing
Doyle, Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha
Doyle, The Barrytown Trilogy
Doyle, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Johnston, The Captain and the Kings
Moore, Lies of Silence
Moore, The Emperor of Ice Cream
Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
O'Brien, Down by the River
O'Brien, In the Forest
O’Brien, At Swim Two Birds
O’Brien, The Third Policeman
O’Carroll, The Agnes Brown Trilogy
O’Connor, The Complete Stories
O’Riordan, Involved
Ridgeway, The Long Falling
Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Trevor, Fools of Fortune
Trevor, The Collected Short Stories
Trevor, ed., The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories
Uris, Trinity
Nonfiction
Boland, Object Lessons
Boll, Irish Journal
Bourke, The Burning of Brigid Cleary
Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization
Carson, Last Night's Fun
Caulfield, The Easter Rebellion
Collins, Killing Rage
Conlon, In the Name of the Father
Coogan, Ireland in the Twentieth Century
Coogan, 1916 The Easter Rising
Coogan, Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland
Coogan, The Troubles
Deane, Reading in the Dark
Dwyer, Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera
Ellmann, James Joyce
Foster, W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Apprentice Mage
Foster, W.B. Yeats Volume II: Arch-Poet
Joyce, Celtic Christianity
MacDonald, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
Marreco, The Rebel Countess
McCourt, 'Tis
McCourt, Angela's Ashes
Mullan, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday
Brown, My Left Foot
O'Brien, James Joyce
O'Brien, Mother Ireland
O'Faolain, Are You Somebody?
O’Hara, The Last of the Donkey Pilgrims
O'Malley, Biting at the Grave
Sheridan, 44 Dublin Made Me
Taylor, Behind the Mask
Taylor, Loyalists
Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger
Sample Assignment
Assignment for Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
1. Examine the centrality and importance of walking in the novel.
2. Re-read the Hell sermons carefully, paying particular attention to the ways in which Hell offends the senses. Write a Joycean description of the L-S Cafeteria as Hell.
3. Trace your changing perceptions, opinions, responses or reactions to Stephen throughout the novel.
4. Write Stephen’s college admissions essay answering the following question: Describe a meaningful experience that you had, the way the experience shaped you, and what you learned from the experience.
5. Stephen views nationality, language and religion as “nets cast upon [his] soul to keep it from flight.” Consider what entities in your own life serve as nets keeping you from flight and compare your adolescence with Stephen’s.
Full year course, offered every other year
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
The history of Western society and literature has been shaped by the European experience. We feel that it is important for American students to read literature from that tradition. Many literary and philosophical movements that continue to influence our lives came out of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, and this course attempts to make students aware of some of these ideas in a cultural context.
Students are asked to consider works of literature and to raise questions about them in relation to their experience and their world. Works are chosen to provoke such inter-cultural questioning and to illuminate, on an introductory level, some of the literary and philosophical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, Naturalism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Existentialism. There are also developments in psychoanalysis that have affected literature and culture that may be discussed.
Students work as a class and as individuals on critical and analytical issues. Some of the questions raised include: What important concerns do we share with Europeans? What seem to be some of the cultural differences as shown in literature? What historical events have shaped thought? What relationships can be found between the two parts of the course--19th and 20th centuries? How does all this affect us in our cultural perspective?
Reading: Students are expected to do considerable reading of various forms of literature. Page numbers are difficult to assign here because of the difference in reading novels, plays, and poetry, for example. A novel of average length will require about two weeks. Madame Bovary would probably take longer.
Writing: There are 4-5 page papers on every major unit or work. Some of the papers are analytical; other involve imitation of styles studied. There are essay tests and quizzes on every work and some ungraded and journal writing. Students are expected to confer with the teacher about their papers. They need to take notes on some of the material presented.
Listening and Speaking: Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the reading and the kinds of questions suggested above. There will be some small group discussion and oral presentation.
Other: Several films, including documentary films, will be shown and discussed for content, technique, and effect. There may also be slides of paintings and music relevant to some of the readings.
Works will be chosen from the following:
Faust, Part I, Goethe
The Gods Will Have Blood, France
Madame Bovary, Flaubert
Eugenie Grandet, Balzac
plays, Ibsen
plays, Strindberg
plays, Chekov
stories, Balzac
Marianne, Sand
Notes from Underground, Dostoievsky
Germinal, Zola
A Confession, Tolstoy
Lenz, Woyzeck, Buchner
The She Wolf and Other Stories, Verga
poems--Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine
The Inspector General, stories, Gogol
selections from Russian and Polish Women's Fiction, ed. Goscilo
The Red and the Black, Stendahl
poems--Rilke
Death in Venice, Mann
The Trial, Kafka
Nausea, Sartre
The Plague, Camus
18 Stories or And Never Said a Word, Boll
Bread and Wine, Silone
When Things of the Spirit Come First, DeBeauvoir
stories--Morazzoni
plays--Pirandello
stories, Aichinger
Waiting for Godot, Beckett
poems--Akhmatova
poems--Milosz
poems--Cassian
poems--Alberti
poems--Cavafy
poems--Celan
poems--Primo Levi
poems--Machado
poems--Aleixandre
poems, plays--Lorca
poems--Herbert
Zorba the Greek, Kazanzakis
The Little Virtues, Ginzburg
plays--Brecht
The Immoralist, Gide
Man's Fate, Malraux
Four Novels, Duras
Possible films: The Assault, Impromptu, The Conformist, Day for Night, King of Hearts, Wild Strawberries, Closely Watched Trains, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Ashes and Diamonds, Mephisto, The Trial, Danton, Woyzeck
This is only a representative bibliography. See the L.S. library collection of European history and fiction.
The Nature of Love, Singer
The Persistence of the Old Regime, Mayer
On Modernism, Howe
In Bluebeard's Castle, Steiner
Literature and Technology, Sypher
The Gift of Death, Derrida
The Double Flame, Paz
Literary Modernism, Howe
The Disinherited Mind, Heller
Darwin, Marx, and Wagner, Barzun
The Ruin of Kasch, Calasso
The Literature of Atrocity, Langer
1. Choose one of the major characters from The Plague and discuss his or her role in the story and in the allegory. That is, what attitudes does the character have? How does she or he behave? What does she or he represent? Be sure to be specific in your citing of evidence.
2. You have some experience with literary "realism" from the first semester of the course. The Plague is an example of a metaphorical-allegorical novel. Discuss which kind of novel you prefer with particular reference to The Plague. That is, you should mention realism, but you should concentrate your discussion on Camus. Dos the allegory of The Plague work for you? Explain, again using specific evidence from the novel.
3. Camus has said that there are more things to admire in human beings than to despise. Discuss this idea with reference to The Plague. Does it seem true? Why or why not?
Full year course
Recommended for 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
This course deals with major periods in Russian literature and with the development of Russian literature--one of the most important national literatures of the world and one which illuminates philosophical, historical, political, and aesthetic movements and conflicts.
Selected from:
Czarist Russian in the 18th and 19th centuries
The Revolution
Stalinism and World War II
Soviet Life and Literature
Contemporary Developments in Literature and Culture
Lecture and discussion.
Substantial reading assignments.
Papers and frequent journal writing.
Library research work.
Film study.
Reading selections are made from a wide variety of literature, including:
Pushkin
Tolstoy
Dostoievsky (focusing on The Brothers Karamazov)
Mandelstam
Akhmatova
Olesha
Chukovskaya
Bulgakov
The Lincoln-Sudbury library has an impressive collection of Russian history and literature on the mezzanine. Consult library information for the author and period.
Full year course, offered every other year
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
It is increasingly apparent that if we in the West, and particularly in the U.S., continue to live in ignorance of the cultures and political situations of the countries of the Third World and Eastern Europe, we will not only deprive ourselves of the extremely valuable knowledge of rich cultural heritages distinct from our own, but also we will land ourselves in still greater worldwide political chaos than we already have.
In recognition of this, Three Worlds' Lit., which includes contemporary works from the Third World, Eastern Europe, and "the West," attempts to (1) expose students to literature of foreign countries, particularly non-Western countries, (2) focus on works that reveal something significant about the present state of the culture and society of the country in which the work is set, and (3) show where there is "overlap," be it discordant or harmonious, between these three "worlds."
Some of the broad themes in the course are as follows:
--the terror that is part of many people's everyday lives
--the ways people deal with intrusive, corrupt governments
--the positive spirit opposed to unbearable living circumstances
--the complexity, seemingly insolubility, of problems
--the conflicts, sometimes humorous, that arise when one culture interacts with another
--the difficulty of successful revolution
--the ignoring or destruction of history
--westernization vs. tradition
--the nature and impact of the miraculous revolution of '89
--absurdity
--governments' impact on art
The above are especially applicable to the Third World and Eastern Europe; themes stressed in the Western section of the course are:
--use/abuse of freedom
--decadence
--industrial and technological progress as a question mark
--impact on the other two worlds
--multicultural aspect of Western societies, especially the U.S.
Discussion is the primary class format. There is an occasional background lecture. Students sometimes make presentations in which they either give interpretations of works or present pertinent information they have researched. These presentations are usually the fruit of group work (i.e., groups of 4-5 students working together on a topic). Guest speakers are sometimes brought in to enhance students' understanding of the societies we study through literature.
Discussions usually derive from questions ranging from the very specific and technical--"What use is Argueta making of the bird imagery in One Day of Life ?--to the very broad--"Is the hope expressed in the novel justifiable? Is there hope?"
Assignments are on a similar continuum: "Write a letter to Martinez telling him what you think of his actions in the village." "Compare and contrast the theme of the value of history in The Official Story and The Ascent of Mt. Fuji.."
Students are asked to keep a journal, which, in addition to being a receptacle of whatever thoughts, impressions, etc. they may have to anything that happens to them (in or out of class), is used by them to track the news from a country of their choice. Students write at least four major papers each semester that are developed slowly in stages. They are strongly encouraged to write in all three basic modes of expression: formal, informal, and creative. Essay tests are given on most of the works we read or see. Students should expect to read approximately 20 pages per night. Every student is expected to take part in discussions, which include listening carefully to the views of their classmates as well as offering their own.
One Day of Life, Argueta
The Official Story, Puenza (film)
"The Dog," Alfaro
"To Jackie O. With All Our Love," Ramirez
"The Perfect Game," Ramirez
selected poems, Paz
selected poems, Neruda
selected poems, Cardenal
selected poems, Dorfman
Ghost Dances (dance performance video)
poems by various African poets
The Lion and the Jewel, Soyinka
A Bend in the River, Naipaul
The Last Summer of Reason, Djaout
This Earth of Mankind, Pramoedya
"The Taste of Apples," Hwang
"Who Am I," Zong
"My Son, My Son," Ru
"The Detour," Tao
The White Snake, Tyan
"Eternal Prisoner Under Thunder Peak Pagoda"
"Chairman Mao is a Rotten Egg," Chen
"The Execution of Mayor Yin," Chen
Yellow Earth (film), Chen Kaige
To Live (film), Zhang Yimou
Self-Portrait with Woman, Szczypiorski
Largo Desolato, Havel
The Canary and Other Tales of Martial Law, Nowakowski
documentary on Polish history
short stories(fables), Vatzlav, Mrozek
"Dry Run," Tokareva
"New Europe" (excerpts), Granta
The Ascent of Mr. Fuji, Aitmatov
poems, Herbert
poems, Milosz
poems, Yevtushenko
Repentance (film), Abuladze
Nuclear Gulag (documentary)
"A World Split Apart," Solzhenitsyn
Ceremony, Silko
Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio (film)
Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy in El Salvador, Bonner
Salvador, Didion
With the Contras, Dickey
The Jaguar Smile, Rushdie
Nicaragua: Poets and Politics (documentary)
Las Madres de la Plaza (documentary)
Open Veins of Latin America, Galeano
A Short History of Africa, Oliver and Fage
The Africans , Mazrui
From Under the Rubble, Solzhenitsyn
The Sacred Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life, Beck et al
Thought Reform: The Psychology of Totalism, Lifton
Amnesty International special report on Argentina (and other AI reports)
Nunca Mas
Full year course
Recommended for 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
The Introduction to Western civilization program is an interdepartmental, team-taught humanities program. The English course has two sections, each of which is taught by two teachers.
The course makes no claim to be comprehensive--in fact, we caution students that it is really an introduction to an introduction--but it is intended to be a roughly chronological study of some of the philosophical and literary themes that have contributed to the formation of what has been called Western Civilization.
We intend to provide some general foundation of works and ideas to the give the students a place to begin in their further study of literature and philosophy: to suggest some background and to raise some questions. In many ways, this is a quintessentially traditional curriculum; in others, the curriculum has developed and come to include and exclude topics according to the judgment of the teachers, the needs of the L.S. English Department curriculum, and responsiveness to some important recent scholarship. First, we try to select the readings so that they do not repeat or conflict with what is done in other courses our students may take or have taken. There is a Survey of British Literature course, for example, that deals with Chaucer. Secondly, we have raised the questions of the possible obsolescence of the course: that is, is Western Civilization dead, not just as an academic area but as an idea? If so, what, if anything, killed it? Is it still worth our time to study? Thirdly, an examination of the reading list will show that the traditional humanities curriculum has been dominated by aristocratic, white men; and that is an important issue in the course. We discuss what the causes and effects of that bias may be; and, not only in connection with the writings of women but in all units, we attempt to include a feminist perspective as well as to raise questions about the rest of the population not in possession of the dominant cultural, verbal and material resources.
As suggested above, the course concentrates on some of the major themes of the culture: the nature of truth, the relationship of humans to God or the gods, the issue of faith and reason, the nature of the idea of romantic love, the nature of the idea of political power, aesthetic issues of language and the nature of beauty, the nature of satire, questions of freedom, political and personal, issues of political economics, questions of Romanticism, Modernism, and other cultural terms.
The controlling question of the course is "What is Virtue?" Perhaps the main theme,then, involves the study of ethics--what ethical questions have shaped our culture, how various periods have dealt with these questions, what these issues mean for us today. We attempt to discuss the development of ideas from period to period and the interrelationship of those ideas.
The basic format of the class is discussion, with occasional brief background lectures. For kinds of thinking and questions raised, see 1 and 2 above. In class students are expected to do close reading of text, to think critically and logically about what they read, and to draw conclusions and make generalizations about their reading and the previous reading in the course. There are small group analysis projects. Connections are made to themes and content in the West. Civ.--History course.
Reading: Students have nightly reading assignments from primary source material and some supplementary material. The number of pages required varies with what is being read: Pere Goriot, around 30 pages per night, Plato around 10.
Writing: Students have regular formal and informal writing assignments:
4-5 page papers on each unit as well as frequent essay quizzes and writing in class which is used to generate discussion. They do work on a reading journal which is periodically collected and commented on by the teachers. There is final examination each semester. Students are expected to have a notebook and to take notes on class discussions.
Listening and Speaking: There is careful discussion of the reading and the issues raised by the reading, as suggested above. In addition, in the course of the year all students are involved in two formal group presentations in which they prepare some topic or performance in connection with what we are studying or have studied for presentation to the rest of the class. They have a choice about the topic and format.
Other: There is one film shown (see below). Students are expected to use conference time with the teachers for discussion of group and written work, and for any help they might need. There are one or two field trips during the year, including M.F.A., the Gardner Museum, and Cloisters, connected to a paper in the history section of the course.
First Semester
The Greeks:
"The Allegory of the Cave," (from Book VII of The Republic),
"The Apology," "The Crito," Plato
Oedipus the King, Sophocles
Antigone, Sophocles
The Poetics, Aristotle
Poems, Sappho
from The Women and the Lyre (women poets of ancient Greece)
The Bible:
Genesis 1-22
Exodus 1-20
I Samuel 17
Job
Ecclesiastes
Ezekiel 1
The Gospel According to Matthew
The Revelation of St. John the Divine
Medieval:
from The Confessions of St. Augustine
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, trans. Joseph Bedier
from The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Capellanus
The Women Troubadours, ed. Med Bogan
Introduction to A History of Their Own, Bonnie Anderson and Judith
Zinsser
from The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Christine de Pisan
The Seventh Seal, film, Ingmar Bergman
The Inferno, Dante
Renaissance:
poems, Francesco Petrarch
from The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio
from The Heptameron, Marguerite de Navarre
The Lais of Marie de France
The Prince, Machiavelli
sonnets, Shakespeare
King Lear, Shakespeare
Second Semester
17th Century:
poems, John Donne
"To His Coy Mistress," Andrew Marvell
poems, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz
from Pensees, Pascal
from The Whole Duty of a Woman, a selection of women's writings
from 17th century England
18th Century:
Candide, Voltaire
from The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The Declaration of Independence," Thomas Jefferson
letter from Abigail Adams
Romanticism:
The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe
selected Romantic poetry
Ourika, Claire de Duras
Late Nineteenth Century:
Pere Goriot, Balzac
The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels
Hedda Gabler, Ibsen
20th Century:
from Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud
"Oedipus Rex," Freud
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Eliot
poems, Yeats
"The Dead," Joyce
from The Ethics of Ambiguity, DeBeauvoir
"The Woman I Was to Be," DeBeauvoir
"Existentialism," Sartre
"In the Penal Colony," Kafka
The Stranger, Camus
"Albert of the Capitals," Duras
"Action Will Be Taken," Boll
"Revelation," Flannery O'Connor
"Getting Out of Garten," Huggan
from Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon
"What Where," Beckett
"Rockaby," Beckett
"Krapp's Last Tape," Beckett
from German Guilt, Jaspers
Even a short bibliography for this course would be very difficult to compile. The following is merely a representative sample of books in each unit. See the teachers for further information; also see bibliographies for Biblical and Classical Literature, Shakespeare I and II, and Continental Literature.
Dictionary of Classical Antiquity
Preface to Plato, Havelock
The Greeks, Kitto
Harper's Biblical Dictionary
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, Pagels
Augustine of Hippo, Brown
various works, Duby
The Waning of the Middle Ages, Huizinga
The Culture of Love, Keen
The Nature of Love, Singer
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, Eco
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Burkhardt
Lions and Foxes, Alexander
Machiavelli in Hell, de Grazia
Image and Insight, Miles
The Book Known as Q, Giroux
From Classic to Romantic, Bate
Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Barzun
The Loss of the Self in Modern Art and Literature, Sypher
Assignment on Socrates:
1. Choose an issue which you think is important, and write a dialogue between yourself and Socrates about that issue. Use the dialogue form that Plato uses in The Republic and his dialogues. You can argue with Socrates as much as you want; be careful that your Socrates is reasonably consistent with the person we have read about in class.
2. In "The Crito," Socrates argues with Crito about whether or not it would be right for Socrates to escape and avoid the punishment given to him by the polis of Athens; Socrates, of course, wins the argument. In an essay or a dialogue between yourself and Socrates, either agree or disagree with him about whether you think he should escape from Athens and continue teaching. Again, make sure that Socrates and his arguments are reasonably consistent with the man we've read about in class.
3. The third assignment is the "invent your own topic" option.
If you don't like #1 or #2 above, then you can make up your own assignment
about Socrates. Please check with us before proceeding.