Why Is the Paper Good
World Literature Through the Renaissance
Dr. John Harris Office: BUS 207a
ENGL 2362.001 & 002 h: 903-566-4985
Spring 2013 w: 903-565-5701 email: jharris@uttyler.edu Office Hours: MWF: 9-11, TTh: 9-9:30 (and by appointment)
Required Texts/Materials
The Macintosh iPad (II) or other means (e.g., a laptop) of downloading text.
All readings are in one large PDF download posted on Blackboard and a single short additional download (Gilgamesh): no bound texts are required, and no purchase of discs is necessary.
Objectives: Any survey course seeks to provide an ample breadth of information (often, unfortunately, at the expense of depth). The objective in this class is for you to emerge with a general sense of major historical transitions in Western culture and of several significant authors whose work defined these transitions; furthermore, we shall aim to grow cursorily familiar with some of the world’s most influential texts and to understand how they relate chronologically and stylistically to our own traditions. Yet to suppose that we can even begin to cover all the world or all great literature, though the word “survey” be understood ever so broadly, would be presumptuous. (For instance, most of the non-Western works we shall study are Indo-Chinese: nothing from Japan, nothing from Africa, and just a bit from the Islamic world.) Hence my second general objective is based on the stylistic relationship mentioned above: you will acquire in this course a functional comprehension (which you will be able to apply to works and times not covered here) of the main characteristics distinguishing oral and literate cultures. The history of literature around the world has continually migrated along this spectrum, though at very differing rates. Hence the spectrum’s study is what the ancient Greeks would have called a
Dr. John Harris Office: BUS 207a
ENGL 2362.001 & 002 h: 903-566-4985
Spring 2013 w: 903-565-5701 email: jharris@uttyler.edu Office Hours: MWF: 9-11, TTh: 9-9:30 (and by appointment)
Required Texts/Materials
The Macintosh iPad (II) or other means (e.g., a laptop) of downloading text.
All readings are in one large PDF download posted on Blackboard and a single short additional download (Gilgamesh): no bound texts are required, and no purchase of discs is necessary.
Objectives: Any survey course seeks to provide an ample breadth of information (often, unfortunately, at the expense of depth). The objective in this class is for you to emerge with a general sense of major historical transitions in Western culture and of several significant authors whose work defined these transitions; furthermore, we shall aim to grow cursorily familiar with some of the world’s most influential texts and to understand how they relate chronologically and stylistically to our own traditions. Yet to suppose that we can even begin to cover all the world or all great literature, though the word “survey” be understood ever so broadly, would be presumptuous. (For instance, most of the non-Western works we shall study are Indo-Chinese: nothing from Japan, nothing from Africa, and just a bit from the Islamic world.) Hence my second general objective is based on the stylistic relationship mentioned above: you will acquire in this course a functional comprehension (which you will be able to apply to works and times not covered here) of the main characteristics distinguishing oral and literate cultures. The history of literature around the world has continually migrated along this spectrum, though at very differing rates. Hence the spectrum’s study is what the ancient Greeks would have called a