Time Schedule:
Nicholas Halmi
C LIT 350
Seattle Campus
World literature, from the Renaissance to modern times, based upon the theme of "parents and children." Selections drawn from European, English, and American literature, not limited to period and genre. Focus upon the motive of generational conflict.
Class description
AUTUMN 2008: Love and Lust in Western Literature
"What is this thing called love?" asks the Cole Porter song. This course won't propose an answer of its own but will survey different conceptions and representations of love--idealized and unabashedly sexual, sentimental and cynical, socially sanctioned and socially condemned--in Western literature from ancient Greece to the present. Along the way we’ll read a play by Shakespeare, a novella by Goethe, and novel each by Jane Austen and the contemporary British writer Jeanette Winterson. We’ll a watch films by Douglas Sirk and R. W. Fassbinder which explore modern social pressures on love. One of the focuses of the course will be the frequent, often unhappy, entanglements of the ostensibly individual, private feeling of love with public concerns of morality, politics, and economics. Written assignments will consist of a midterm, a take-home final, and some brief response papers.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
