Reading and composition course based on works of Celtic writers both in English and in translations from Celtic languages. In addition to training in textual analysis and descriptive and argumentative writing, the courses will discuss the notion of Celtic "voices": distinctive modes of cultural expression chosen by important authors from a Celtic milieu. Readings will be chosen from a variety of modern Irish, Welsh, highland Scots, and Breton writers. R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R1B satisfies the second half.

In what many commentators have labeled the 'psychedelic renaissance' of our contemporary, we have seen increasing openness to the therapeutic and mind-opening capacity of psychotropic medicines and the visions and hallucinations that they offer us. Of course, access to other worlds beyond our own is nothing new. Various cultures, artists and mystics have long held those with the capacity to reach the imperceptible as important, sacred and influential figures in the community. This writing intensive course begins by asking the question as to whether the recent popularity of psychotropic and psychedelic healing might allow us to ask different questions about the long history of hallucinations and visions that sometimes come to us against our will. As such, centering on case studies in the Irish and Celtic context (but expanding to various parts of the world) this course will ask students to consider discourses surrounding madness and schizophrenia and state/medical responses to them; the importance of divine visions and apparitions in cultures across the world; the history of psychedelic movements in the US and beyond; how one can represent and write about hallucinatory and visionary experiences through artistic and literary means; and quite a bit more. In wrestling with these questions students will write a few argumentative essays leading up to a final research paper on a topic of their choice.

Requisites

• Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills