This reading and writing intensive course is organized around three modules: “Old World,” dealing with the Eurasian landmass over the classical and early modern eras; “New World,” dealing with the Americas, and “Our World,” dealing with the globalized world we live in today. We will thus be exploring a series of texts organized both historically and geographically, from antiquity to the present, and from the transcontinental to the global. The course fulfills the goals of the second half of the reading and composition requirement (R1B). Success in this course depends upon deep reading, ongoing participation, and steady commitment to the composition and revision of two progressively longer research essays.

“The West” belongs to the most widely used keywords in public discourse worldwide. But what does “the West” mean? This intensive reading and writing course approaches this question through three spatio-temporal modules: The Making of the West in Time, dealing with some key moments in the formation of the idea of the West in Europe from antiquity to the early twentieth century; One West, Multiple East, dealing with various articulations of “the West” as a comparative and often polemical concept in twentieth-century Asia and Africa, and finally The Global Present, dealing with “the West” as a shorthand for a set of often contested values in the global present shaped by geopolitical tensions, migratory flows, and environmental crisis. Readings include literature, philosophy, and cultural criticism from multiple traditions and across the ages, selected to familiarize students with historical and cross-cultural modes of thinking. At the same time, students will learn to develop their writing skills by engaging with imaginative, expository, and argumentative texts.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills