Topic: "Civilization and Its Discontents"    Lecture MW; Discussion TR
We will read and write on a number of texts that range over a wide historical period but which
all raise, in one way or another, the same questions:  whether man (and or woman) is better off
for being parts of a (supposedly) civilized society.  Texts are likely to include Homer's
_Odyssey_, Anon's _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, Shakespeare's_Othello_, Conrad's
_Heart of Darkness_, Achebe's _Things Fall Apart_, and Burgess's _A Clockwork Orange_
in both its novelistic and cinematic versions.  No in-class cannibalism and no GRATUITOUS
violence, just close reading of a group of perennially interesting texts and a great deal of
concentration on writing clear, structured arguments in answer to specific questions on the
texts.  The guiding spirit, or father-figure, of the course will be Sigmund Freud, whose
_Civilization and Its Discontents_ we shall also read.  You will be required to buy , in addition
to the assigned literary texts and film ticket, a grammar book and a good dictionary (if you
don't already have one).  Five 3-to-4-page essays and several in-class writing exercises.  Two
lectures (primarily on the readings) and two discussion sections (on both the readings and
student writing) each week.