Overview
Literature Studies 551 investigates an increasingly influential approach to literary studies—world literature. The course covers the seventeenth century to the present, including diverse forms of literary representation, from broadside ballads to Instapoetry, The Thousand and One Nights to Aboriginal science fiction, as well as drama, short fiction, graphic memoir, and manga, to explore international issues such as postcolonialism, globalization, and indigenization. As a multifaceted history of cultural transmission in global contexts, the course challenges traditional conceptions of world literature and considers new directions for literary studies in the twenty-first century.
Learning outcomes
After completing this course, students will be able to:
- identify the challenges of defining and interpreting world literature;
- apply various theories and methodologies to the reading of world literature;
- articulate the means by which world literature questions prevailing social, political, economic, ontological, and/or ethical frameworks;
- trace material histories of the production and reception of world literature;
- compare works or histories of world literature within and across borders;
- ask how readers make meaning of texts according to interests and circumstances; and
- report on individual research into texts and topics of world literature.
Evaluation
Your final grade in the course will be determined based on the marks achieved for the following assignments. To receive credit for LTST 551, students must complete and submit all three essay assignments, and you must achieve an overall grade of at least C- (60 percent).
| Activity | Weight |
| Essay Assignment 1 | 20% |
| Essay Assignment 2 | 30% |
| Essay Assignment 3 | 50% |
| Total | 100% |
Materials
Physical course materials
The following course materials are included in a course package that will be shipped to your home prior to your course’s start date:
Mistral, Gabriela. Gabriela Mistral: Selected Poems. Translated by Paul Burns and Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres, Oxbow Books, 2006.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. Pantheon, 2007.
Taylor, Drew Hayden. Take Us to Your Chief (and Other Stories). Douglas & McIntyre, 2016.
Tezuka, Osamu. Astro Boy: Omnibus 1. Translated by Frederik L. Schodt, Dark Horse Manga, 2015.
Other Materials
All other materials can be found online and include:
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor, 2009.
Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery.
Gay, John. The Beggar’s Opera. Edited by Claude Lovat Fraser. Project Gutenberg, 2008.