English 111 (W, I) World Literature: Chronicles of Struggle and Change

Wagner College, Spring 2002

 

Dr. Pranav Jani                                                Office Hours: MW 3-5, Or by appointment

Parker Hall 302                                               http://www.wagner.edu/faculty/users/pjani

pjani@wagner.edu                                           http://webboard.wagner.edu/~pjani

(718) 390-3362                          

                                                                                                                       

Course Description:

English 111 examines literature from around the globe that reveals the massive transformations and struggles that have made the world what it is today.  Geographically, we will read texts from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.  Historically, we will move from 1492 to the 21st century.  Thematically, we will learn about upon the clash between indigenous peoples and settlers, slaves and slaveholders, capitalists and workers, women and men, gays and straights, oppressed races and dominant ones, and see how these different categories have intersected in complex ways over the ages.  We hope to accomplish all this through reading many different kinds of literary and cultural texts, including novels, essays, poetry, plays, and film and learning how to develop interpretations and formulate arguments.  World literature, as presented here, becomes a window through which we can view world history and its development, as well as grasp the tools of critical thinking and writing.

 

Required Texts:

J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies 

George Orwell, Animal Farm

Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Candide

 

Course Packet, English 111, Spring 2002 (CP)

 

Assignments and Grading

Informal Writing:                5%

Classroom Participation:    20%

Paper #1 (2-3          pages):         20%

Paper #2 (4-5 pages):                 25%

Final Project                      30%

 

COURSE OUTLINE

 

Weeks 1-2:   Native American Writing and a “History From Below”

W 1/23         Introduction

F 1/25           Howard Zinn, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”—CP

 

Note: Drop/Add Period Ends 1/31

 

M 1/28                    Shirley Hill Witt, “Listening to their Many Voices”—CP

Native American Literature—CP

W 1/30         Basil Johnston, from Indian School Days—CP

F 2/1            Debate: The Price and Definition of Progress

 

Week 3:       The Enlightenment and Critical Thinking

M 2/4            Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Candide

W 2/6           Voltaire, Candide

F 2/8            Voltaire, Candide

                    Paper #1 Due

 

Weeks 4-6:   The Bourgeois Revolutions…and Their Discontents

M 2/11                    Thomas Jefferson, et al. “The Declaration of Independence”—CP

Bobby Seale, “The Black Panther Party Platform”—CP

W 2/13         Writings from the French Revolution on slavery and women’s rights—CP

F 2/15                     Mary Wollestonecraft, “Vindication of the Rights of Women”—CP

 

M 2/18                    NO CLASS—School Holiday

T 2/19           Monday Classes

                    Wollestonecraft, “Vindication of the Rights of Women”—CP

W 2/20         Tarabai Shinde, from A Comparison Between Women and Men—CP

F 2/22           Suffragist and anti-Suffragist papers from the early 20th century—handout

 

Note: Declare Pass/Fail Option, 2/20-2/26

 

M 2/25                    Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1854)

W 2/27         Douglass, Narrative

F 3/1            Douglass, Narrative

Douglass, “Letter to Thomas Auld,” “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”—CP

 

Week 7:       Industrialization and the Class Divide in the West

M 3/4            Excerpts, “Industrialization: Progress or Decline?”—CP

W 3/6           Clips from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times—in class

F 3/8            Choose a Topic for Discussion: Sweatshops, Recession, Globalization

                    Paper #2 Due

 

Spring Break 3/11-3/17

 

Note: D/F Notices Go Out, 3/18

 

Weeks 8-10: Colonialism and Resistance

M 3/18                    Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”—CP

W 3/20         Kipling’s Contemporaries, http://www.boondocksnet.com/kipling/     

F 3/22           George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant,” “A Hanging”—CP

 

Note: Last Day to Drop Without Academic Penalty, 3/26

 

M 3/25                    Clips from Gandhi, Michael Collins, The Battle of Algiers

                    Jawaharlal Nehru, “Tryst With Destiny”—CP

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Dawn of Freedom”—CP

W 3/27         Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

F 3/29           NO CLASS—School Holiday

 

M 4/1            NO CLASS—School Holiday

W 4/3           Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

F 4/5            Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

 

Week 11-12: Overcoming Otherness

M 4/8            Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”—CP

W 4/10         Hughes, “Air Raid Over Harlem,” “The English,” “Johannesburg Mines,” “I, Too,” “Harlem”—CP

Leopold Senghor, “New York”—CP

F 4/12           J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

 

M 4/15                    Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

W 4/17         Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

F 4/19           Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”—CP

                    Final Project Outline Due

 

Week 13:      Immigration and Writing

M 4/22                    Anzia Yezierska, “America and I”—CP

                    Finley Peter Dunne, “The Piano in the Parlor,” “Immigration”—CP

                    Jhumpa Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies

W 4/24         Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies

F 4/26           Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies

 

Note: Last Day to Withdraw from Class, 5/1

 

Week 14:      Literature and Politics

M 4/29                    Orwell, Animal Farm

W 5/1           Orwell, Animal Farm

 

Final Project Due in my office by noon, 5/6

 

Notes:          Reading Days: 5/2 and 5/3

Exam Week: 5/6-5/10

Deadline for Late Work, 5/10 @ 5pm