Expository writing based on analysis of selected masterpieces of ancient and modern literature. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

Contemporary philosophy and literature place significant emphasis on the body as a site of knowledge production. We will study this emphasis, as it is taken up in a variety of literary and critical works. But what is the body? Is it my epidermis, my senses, the complicated nexus of impulses called drives, my emotions, the lump of meat known as the brain? Where does my body end and my mind (or my ideas or whatever the not-body is) begin? Is the contemporary emphasis on the body an oblique response to a set of historical and political developments? If so, what are those developments? We will study how literary and philosophical works attempt to think through these questions. Since this is a reading and composition course, its major goals are to improve students’ skills in close reading, critical thinking, and analytical writing, and to explore the relationships between the three skills. Readings include Augustine, Diderot, La Mettrie, Faulkner, Borges, Butler, McGinn, and Cabezón Cámara. Films by Pontecorvo and Glazer.

Requisites

• UC Entry Level Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam. 1A or equivalent is prerequisite to 1B.

Credit Restrictions

Students will receive no credit for COM LIT R1B after completing COM LIT N1B, COM LIT S1B, COM LIT H1B, or COM LIT 1B.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills