This course is a small, faculty-led seminar on the practice and discipline of literary analysis. It is meant for all students who seek an introductory literature course and would like to improve their ability to read and write critically, including those who may wish to major in English. Focusing on the close study of a few works, rather than a survey of many, the seminar will help students develop college-level skills for interpreting literature, while gaining awareness of different strategies and approaches for making sense of literary language, genres, forms, and contexts. The seminar also will develop students’ ability to write about literature and to communicate meaningfully the stakes of their analysis to an audience.

We will study the art of storytelling as it is practiced in several disciplines – literary criticism, cultural studies, history, anthropology, psychology, medicine – to learn how scholars combine story and argument, imagination and analysis, perspective and provocation. Through discussions and workshops, students will develop research projects that experiment with narrative as a stylistic choice, as vehicle for analysis, and as a method for asking deeper questions by turning the place where so many questions begin: the story.

Requisites

• Students with 1-6 Terms in Attendance

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills