TuTh 11:15am-12:30pm
HU 217

It is impossible to think meaningfully about ideas without reference
to a range of experiences. It is a failure of the imagination to
experience without some reflection on its meaning. This class is
about exploring a range of themes, some clearly historical, others
indirectly. It is said that classic can be read profitably over and
over with the reader discovering new dimensions with each successive
reading.  A classic work of fiction is also a work that speaks to
subjects and ideas that are both rooted in time and place but also
time-less.

A classic work invites us to reflect on experiences that we may
never have, nor even want to have or, alternately, those that we may
wish to have. Religious sacrifice, inhumanity, war, marriage, school
life, family dynamics, opulence, colonialism are some of the themes
we will explore in our course and that, however particular, have
universal significance.

The twelve texts we will study are:
Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
Albert Camus, The Plague
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Yasunari Kawabata, Beauty and Sadness
Joan Didion, Play it as it Lays: A Novel
Don DeLillo, White Noise

Ten of these works are unambiguous classics; two contemporary works
may acquire a reputation as a classic, if they have not already done
so. They are twelve books that you will want to have in your library.
The final grade will be based on two major papers (one at mid-
semester and the other in lieu of a final) and six short
(approximately two-page) summaries.  So, you will be asked for six
short pieces and two larger papers.  I will also grade on your
capacity to add to critical discussion in class.