Said, 1 World Literature II (COLI 111) Alienation, Conformity, Identity Instructor: Rania Said Tuesday and Thursday 8:30-9:55_Nelson A. Rockefeller Center 203 Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 10:05-11:10 at LNG568 Email address: rsaid1@binghamton.edu In place of old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climates. In place of the old local and national seclusion, and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature. Marx and Engels_The Communist Manifesto, qtd in Damrosch Astonishing voyagers! What splendid stories We read in your eyes as deep as the seas! William Kentridge Show us the chest of your rich memories, Those marvelous jewels, made of ether and stars. We wish to voyage without steam and without sails! To brighten the ennui of our prisons, Make your memories, framed in their horizons, Pass across our minds stretched like canvasses. Tell us what you have seen._ Baudelaire Course Description: This semester we will be reading modern and contemporary texts that have transcended the local and managed to leave their trace in the highly competitive space of world literature. Our texts will follow the spiritual and material quests of a number of heroes and heroines from a variety of cultures. In our examination of these quests our thematic concerns will range from the study of violence, and power structures, to the exploration of alienation, religiosity, and love. We will also pay close attention to the role played by art and story-telling.
Said, 2 Our theoretical texts will help us frame our discussion of certain methodological problems that are inherent in the field of world literature. Two of the main issues that we will examine in the beginning of the semester will be: the politics of translation and the mechanisms of dissemination of texts in the world literary market. These theoretical essays will also guide our analysis of the most important themes that we will be dealing with this semester. Our selection of books and articles is drawn from a wide number of languages, ranging from German to Spanish, to French, and Russian. It is needful to mention, however, that as readers of world literature, we are faced with two main methodological and ethical problems. The first of which is that we are reading in translation. Our contact with the text is thus more mediated than that of someone reading it in the language in which it first appeared. The second problem is that world language programs ( foreign languages) in American universities are shrinking, and the continuing rise of world literature may be contributing to this loss. Some of the ways around these problems could be to think of this class as an incentive to learn new languages and not to consider it as some kind of boutique multiculturalism, where every text stands for a culture and a worldview (Fish). This means that we should try our best to think of our narratives as living (and thus evolving) entities and not as representative of fixed and closed territories. It also entails that we have to be constantly aware of our subject position (who we are, where we are, the books we read, the languages we speak ) General Plan: 1-Introduction to world literature (Week 1) 2-Introduction to basic concepts for the study of literature (Week 2 to Week 4) 3-Example of Enlightenment literature: Candide (Week 4 to Week 6) 4-Examples of Existentialist literature: writings by Dostoevsky and Camus (Week 6 to Week 8) 5-Examples of Anglophone ( postcolonial ) literature: Achebe and Lalami (Week 8 to Week 13) Course Policy: Attendance: You are expected to attend all classes and to be on time. You are allowed three absences. After the third absence I will deduct 0.3 from your final grade (an A will become an A-). You will still have to submit your assignments on their due dates, even if you are unable to attend class. Academic Integrity: Plagiarism is the unethical appropriation of someone else s words and ideas. It will automatically lead to an F in the assignment. Please refer to SUNY Binghamton s Academic Honesty Code. Requirements and Assignments: *Participation: Your participation will count towards 20% of your final grade. You are expected to contribute intelligently to the class discussion and to show your engagement with the texts that we will be reading. Check Blackboard for the weekly discussion questions and come
Said, 3 prepared with a well-written paragraph for each question. The number of questions will vary. Failure to respond when prompted will affect your grade negatively. *Responses: You are expected to write 6 responses throughout the semester as indicated in the table below. Responses will be 20 % of your final grade. Your response should be one page (no less than 250 words), double-spaced, in Times New Roman, 12. In your response you should develop a point discussed in class or think more about your own questions in relation to the text. Responses should be submitted both via email and as a hard copy. The same deadline applies for both. You should NOT summarize the text. You should analyze it. You should NOT write an autobiographical essay (your family, your love life, your pet..) *Essays: You are required to write three essays. The first two essays will be 4 pages on a topic of your choice (after consulting with me). The final paper will be 6 pages on a topic of your choice (after consulting with me). You are expected to revise your first essay, a week after I hand it back to you. Your second grade (the revised version) is the one that will be counted. You are also expected to submit a draft of your final paper on week 13. Your three essays will count towards 60% of your grade. All three essays should follow the MLA format. *Writing Assignments: Week 1 Week 2 Week3 Week 4 Week 5 Week6 Week7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 None Response Paper 1 due on Thursday Response Paper 2 due on Thursday Response Paper 3 on Big Fish due on Tuesday None First Essay Draft due on Thursday Response Paper 4 on Thursday First Essay Final Version due on Thursday Response Paper 5 due on Thursday Second Essay due on Thursday SPRING BREAK Final Paper Outline due on Tuesday Response Paper 6 due on Thursday Final Paper due on the last day of class Learning Outcomes: This course helps you fulfill your Composition (C) requirement. Composition (C) courses are courses in any of the departments or divisions of the University. They require a process of
Said, 4 revision and a minimum of 20 pages of expository prose. At least 50 percent of the course grade is based on student writing. Required Books: 1-Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents 2-Voltaire, Candide ou l optimisme 3-Feodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground 4-Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart 5-Laila Lalemi, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Required Movies: 1-Big Fish, Tim Burton, 2003 2-Hunger, Steve McQueen, 2008 3-Le Notti Bianche (Winter Nights), Luchino Visconti, 1957 (might be cancelled if not made available by the library) Detailed Course Plan Any changes to this schedule will be announced in class as they become necessary. It is your responsibility to keep track of these changes. Week 1: Introduction to World Literature: Jan.28: Discussion of the syllabus and requirements Jorge Luis Borges_ The Immortal (on Blackboard). Jan.30: Goethe- On World Literature (on Blackboard.) Pascale Casanova- Literature as a World (on Blackboard.) Week 2: On Translation, and Imaginative Geographies: Feb.4: Franco Moretti- Translation and the Pedagogy of Literature (on Blackboard). Jorge Luis Borges- Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote (on Blackboard). Feb.6: Jorge Luis Borges- The Thousand and One Nights (on Blackboard.) Week 3: Edward Said, Imaginative Geography and its Representations: Orientalizing the Orient (On Blackboard.) Feb.18: Sigmund Freud-Civilization and its Discontents
Said, 5 Feb.20 Sigmund Freud-Civilization and its Discontents Week 4: Feb.11: Friedrich Nietzsche- On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense (on Blackboard.) Tim Burton- Big Fish (USA, 2003) (Discussion of the movie). Walter Benjamin: The Story Teller (on Blackboard). Feb.13: Voltaire, Candide Week 5: March 4: Voltaire, Candide March 6: Voltaire, Candide Week 6: March 11: Voltaire, Candide March 13: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground Week 7: Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (on Blackboard). March 18: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground March 20: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground Week 8: March 25: Fyodor Dostoyevsky-Notes from the Underground + Winter Nights (on Blackboard) Luchino Visconti, Le Notti Bianche (Winter Nights), 1957 March 27: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart Week 9: April 1: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart April 2: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart Hunger, Steve McQueen, 2008
Said, 6 Week 10: April 8: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart April 10: Laila Lalemi, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Week 11: SPRING BREAK Week 12: Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits 1 April 22: Laila Lalami-Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits April 21: Laila Lalami-Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Week 13: Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits 2 April 29: Laila Lalami-Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits May 1: TBA Week 14: Wrapping up May 6: Term Paper Workshop May 8: Conclusion Works Cited Baudelaire, Charles. The Voyage. Flowers of Evil. Trans. William Aggeler. Fleursdumal.org. Web. 14 Aug. 2013. Damrosch, David. What is World Literature? New Jersey: Princeton U.P., 2003, p. xiii. Print Fish, Stanley. Boutique Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals are Incapable of Thinking about Hate Speech? Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23, No. 2, (winter 1997): p. 378-395. Jstor. Web. 14. Aug. 2013. Kentridge, William. Espagne Ancienne (Porter With Dividers). Tapestry. Shadowy Nomads, Writ in Warp and Woof. The New York Times. Roberta Smith. Dec. 31, 2007. Web. 14. Aug. 2013.