2110fa08.htm

This preliminary syllabus (#2) is the general syllabus for both my ENGLISH 2110 courses this term.

See WebCT and Nicenet frequently for messages and ongoing discussions. --RWH, August 21, 2008

[Revised, August 21, 2008; again, September 7, 2008]

ENGLISH 2110-18 and -24
Dr. Robert W. Hill, Professor Emeritus
Fall 2008

Office Hours in EB141: Tuesday/Thursday 11am-noon, online and by appointment
Email: rhill@kennesaw.edu AND bobhill@ymail.com
KSU Website: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~rhill

***(To email me, always send to both my addresses.
To contact y'all en masse, I will send to both WebCT and Nicenet,
as well as to your personal email addresses if I have them.)***

KSU Course Description:

ENGL 2110: World Literature 3-0-3.

Prerequisite: ENGL 1102 (with C or better).

A study of world literature which explores human experience
by examining diverse aesthetic and cultural perspectives
from ancient to modern times.

ATTENDANCE POLICY follows the General Education Program’s recommendations; viz.,

KSU Academic Calendar for Fall 2008

KSU Exam Schedule for Fall 2008

KSU Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities
(BE SURE TO READ CAREFULLY this section in the Undergraduate Catalog, which includes official KSU positions regarding academic honesty, plagiarism, etc.)

Best advice for this course:

Read. Take notes. Be engaged for the long haul.
Or, as Garrison Keillor says,
"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

--RWH, August 21, 2008

Required texts and other references:

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Some Versions of Homer.” PMLA 107.5 (Oct. 1992): 1134-38. [Full text available through Sturgis Library electronic resources and/or GALILEO.]

Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/.

Pan’s Labyrinth [El laberinto del fauno]. Dir. Guillermo del Toro. 2006.

Spring, Summer, Winter Fall . . . and Spring [Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom]. Dir. Ki-duk Kim. 2003.

The Kitchen Toto. Dir. Harry Hook. 1987.

Mack, Maynard, et al., eds. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Expanded ed. New York: Norton, 1997. ISBN 0-393-97143-0 or 0-393-97143-9 (just be sure it’s the 1997 edition).

Maynard Mack, General Editor (Ph.D. Yale University) is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University. His books include King Lear in Our Time (1965), The Garden and the City: Retirement and Politcs in the Later Poetry of Pope (1969), and Alexander Pope: A Life (1985), for which he won the Los Angeles Times 1986 Book Prize for best biography of the year, and Everybody's Shakespeare (1993).

Bernard M. W. Knox (Ph.D. Yale University) was for many years the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and His Time (1957), The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (1964), Word and Action (1979), Essays Ancient and Modern (1989), The Oldest Dead White European Males (Norton, 1993), Backing Into the Future (Norton, 1994), and recently edited The Norton Book of Classical Literature (1993).

Indira Peterson (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College. Her articles on Indian literature and culture have appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Literature East and West, and Asian Folklore Studies. Among her books are Poems to SÏva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (1989) and Design and Rhetoric in a Sanskrit Court Epic: The Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi (forthcoming).

Stephen Owen (Ph.D. Yale University) is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His books include The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (1980), Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: An Omen of the World (1985), Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature (1986), and An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (Norton, 1996).

Jerome Clinton (Ph.D. University of Michigan) is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His translations include The Tragedy of Sohr·b and Rost·m, from the Persian epic The Sh’hn’me. He is the author of The Divan of Mauchihri Damghani: A Critical Study (1972) and a language text, Modern Persian: Spoken and Written (forthcoming), and has published many articles on Middle Eastern literature.

Robert Lyons Danly (Ph.D. Yale University) is Professor of Far Eastern Languages and Literature at the University of Michigan. Among his many translations are In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life of Jiguchi Ichiyo, with Nine of Her Best Short Stories (Norton, 1992), for which he won the American Book Award in Translation in 1982, and two translations of works by Ihara Saikaku, Worldly Reckonings and The Woman Who Lived for Love (forthcoming).

P.M. Pasinetti (Ph.D. Yale University) is Professor Emeritus of Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of numerous articles, revies, and film scripts, as well as several novels, including Venetian Red (1960), From Academy Bridge (1970), and Dorsoduro (1983), and was the recipient of the Fiction Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

John Nierhorst (B.A. Cornell University) is a writer and translator who has published widely on native American literature, specializing in Aztec studies. His books include Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature (1974), The Red Swan: Myths and Tales of the American Indians (1976), The Mythology of Mexico and Central America (1990), and The Way of the Earth: Native America and the Environement (1994).

Sarah Lawall (Ph.D., Yale University) is Professor of Comparative Literature and Adjunct Professor of French at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her publications include Critics of Consciousness: The Existential Structures of Literature (1968), "The Self-person of Surrealism" (1984), "World Literature, Comparative Literature, Teaching Literature" (1990), and Reading World Literature: Theory, History, and Practice (1994).

F. Abiola Irele (Ph.D., Sorbonne) is Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literatures at The Ohio State University. He is the editor of The Selected Poems of Senghor and The African Experience in Literature and Ideology (1990), and the author of numerous articles on African literature and intellectual movements.

Mississippi Masala. Dir. Mira Nair. 1992.

STRONG ADVICE: VIEW THESE MOVIES AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN LAY YOUR HANDS ON THEM. Movie rental and purchase sites online: Blockbuster.com (1 DVD at a time, 2/mo by mail: $3.99 +tax/mo) AND Netflix.com (1 DVD at a time, 2/mo by mail: $4.99 +tax/mo, "2 weeks free trial"); Video Library; Amazon.com (might purchase new or used copies of hard-to-find movies and perhaps share in groups)

Nicenet.org http://www.nicenet.org/. [Class Key for 2110-18 = 8244534240; for 2110-24 = 8244535227].

Rashômon. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Writ. Ryunosuke Akutagawa (stories). 1950.

WebCT http://vista.kennesaw.edu/. [NetID and your PIN].

OTHER STUFF: Occasionally, we will examine additional brief texts and handouts to be read in class.

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Class Schedule (Nota bene: all readings are to be completed before the scheduled class meeting):

WEEK I:
Tuesday, August 19        The syllabus, read carefully, including all hyperlinked materials. Discuss "nations," "canon," "masterpieces," and other cultural constructs. All selections from the Ancient Egyptian "Leiden Hymns" and "Love Songs" (Mack 44-48)

Thursday, August 21      Borges’s “Some Versions of Homer” [For productive discussion and note-taking, bring printed copy to class with you]. Gilgamesh (Mack 13-42)

WEEK II:
Tuesday, August 26      All selections from Genesis and Job (Mack).

Thursday, August 28      Mississippi Masala (117m)

WEEK III:
Monday, September 1    LABOR DAY. No KSU Classes.

Tuesday, September 2 All selections from Plato and Aristotle (Mack 500-24)

Thursday, September 4 All selections from Walt Whitman (Mack 2308-13); Emily Dickinson's "Much Madness is divinest Sense--," "I heard a Fly buzz--when I died," "The Brain--is wider than the Sky--," "Because I could not stop for Death--," "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--," "He preached upon 'Breadth' till it argued him narrow--" (Mack 2317, 2318-19, 2319-20, 2321)

WEEK IV:
Tuesday, September 9             The Kitchen Toto (96m; available only as VHS. [Nota bene: Showing The Kitchen Toto at 6am (EB166) and 6pm (tba).] Also, all selections from Confucius and Chuang Chou; and “From The Book of Songs”: 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 28 (Mack)

Thursday, September 11          Remembering 9/11/01; also, gathering our thoughts for Test #1.

WEEK V:
Tuesday, September 16        Test #1 (multiple choice, machine-scored)

Thursday, September 18          The Thousand and One Nights (Mack)

WEEK VI:
Tuesday, September 23           All selections from The Bible: The New Testament (Mack)

Thursday, September 25          All selections from The Koran (Mack)

WEEK VII:
Tuesday, September 30           Spring, Summer, Winter Fall . . . and Spring [view this movie on your own]. Also, all selections from The Ramayana of Valmiki (Mack). Discuss timelines and other contexts for the texts we’ve read.

Thursday, October 2             Test #2 (cumulative--up to 20% of the test may include materials from earlier in the course; multiple choice, machine-scored)

WEEK VIII:
Tuesday, October 7     Lu Xun's [Lu Hsün's] "Diary of a Madman" (Mack)

Thursday, October 9    Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (Mack)

Friday, October 10 = Last day to withdraw without academic penalty

WEEK IX:
Tuesday, October 14               All selections from The Bhagavad-Gita (Mack).

Thursday, October 16           Test #3 (cumulative--up to 20% of the test may include materials from earlier in the course; multiple choice, machine-scored)

WEEK X:
Tuesday, October 21               Oedipus the King (Mack)

Thursday, October 23             T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. [For productive listening and note-taking, bring printed copy to class].

WEEK XI:
Tuesday, October 28               Lecture

Thursday, October 30           Test #4 (cumulative--up to 20% of the test may include materials from earlier in the course; multiple choice, machine-scored)

WEEK XII:
Tuesday, November 4       Poems of Bai Juyi and Wen Tingyun [For productive discussion and note-taking, bring printed copy to class; "Poetry Translations from the Chinese." Trans. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping. Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/issue-spring2003.htm.]

Thursday, November 6       Lecture

WEEK XIII:
Tuesday, November 11     Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths" (Mack)

Thursday, November 13     Lecture

WEEK XIV:
Tuesday, November 18      Test #5 (cumulative--up to 20% of the test may include materials from earlier in the course; multiple choice, machine-scored)

Thursday, November 20          Pan’s Labyrinth (119m)

WEEK XV:
Tuesday, November 25           In-class review based on written questions or observations from students (I)

November 26-30 = Fall Break. No KSU classes Wednesday-Sunday

WEEK XVI:
Tuesday, December 2 LAST CLASS: In-class review based on written questions or observations from students (II)

Wednesday, December 3 KSU: Last day of classes for fall semester

FINAL EXAMS for 2110 = hyper-cumulative; viz., up to 90% may include materials from before November 18 on your syllabus.

December 4-10 KSU: FINAL EXAMS

ENGL 2110-18 = December 9, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
ENGL 2110-24 = December 9, 12:30-2:30 p.m.

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TESTS AND GRADING:

1. Five major tests, one hour (50 questions or so), multiple-choice, lowest grade dropped = 20% each (for four tests).

2. Final exam, same format as Tests = 15%.

3. Attendance: Must have no more than six absences (three full weeks’ classes = 20% of the course), for any reason, to pass the course (keep in mind that the last day to drop without academic penalty is October 10, after which you have fourteen scheduled classes).

4. Online writing is, unfortunately, not graded, but I will read it all and occasionally respond. WebCT and Nicenet allow for online study groups in a pedagogical situation so bulky as to make in-class discussion virtually impossible. Its purpose, whether it’s graded or not, is to provide a forum for working out, affirming, testing, and therefore remembering your ideas about the material of this course. “Borderline” decisions about your grades will hinge on your semester-long engagement in these discussions = 5%.

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Works Consulted

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Mack 2936-3030.

Amazon.com www.amazon.com.

Auden, W.H. Introduction. The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard. By Søren Kierkegaard. New York: David McKay, 1952; New York Review of Books, 1999. xiv-xv. 20 Jan. 2008 http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product-file/20/thel20/introduction.pdf.

Bai Juyi. Trans. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping. "Assignment under the Title 'Departure at Ancient Grass Field.'" Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-assignment.htm.

---. "Buying Flowers." Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-buying.htm.

---. "Lament for Peony Flowers." Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-lament.htm.

---. "Light Fur and Fat Horses." Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-light.htm.

---. "On Laozi." Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-on.htm.

---. "Poem II" [from "Two Quatrains about a Pond"]. Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-poem.htm.

---. "Song of Collecting Lotus Seeds." Kennesaw Review Spring 2003. 29 Dec. 2007 http://kennesawreview.org/OLD_SITE/spring2003/barnstone-song.htm.