251 Course Syllabus Ashkenas
Course title: Survey of World Literature One
Office e-mail: dashkenas@nvcc.edu
Web page address: http://www.nvcc.edu/home/dashkenas
Office hours: TBA.
Course prerequisites: You must have taken and passed English 111. You need not have taken any other literature course, but some experience reading stories analytically, rather than just for pleasure, is helpful. A background in literary terminology is also helpful. There’s a background handout (attached) that reviews this terminology. Class discussions should also help.
Attendance:
This is a traditional course, not a
hybrid course with online requirements.
The only online “work” you will be asked to do is to access and print
the study guides on the reading material.
(See the web links at the end of this syllabus). And if you can’t do this for any reason, let
me know and I will print up copies for you.
However, all students are asked to
note that since this is a traditional course, classroom meetings are your main
source of information about the required work.
No student who only comes to half the classes, as he would do if this
were a hybrid course, should expect to pass.
See more specific attendance guidelines below.
In any sixteen-week course that meets twice weekly, you shouldn’t miss more than 5 classes a semester. (You shouldn’t miss more than 2 classes in a sixteen-week course that only meets once a week. In a summer six-week session, every absence counts and can affect your ability to pass the course, so act accordingly. Students with repeated absences, explained or unexplained, may be withdrawn from the course. Even if that doesn’t happen, students who miss classes are more likely to misunderstand directions, deadlines, or other course requirements. That normally lowers their grade or decreases their chance of passing the course. If misunderstandings about the assignments or course requirements are widespread, then I’ll accept responsibility for them and make appropriate adjustments in the requirements. If they aren’t, I won’t. (For this purpose, a “widespread” misunderstanding would be one that confused more than five students who were present when the directions were given.)
Texts:
The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by N.K. Sandars (Penguin paperback edition)
The Odyssey, translated by Rousse (prose paperback edition)
Monkey; A Journey to the West, translated by David Kherdian (Shambhala paperback edition)
Since we’ll be comparing traditional epic narratives to modern movie epics, we’ll also be seeing movies in this class. How many depends on how fast we move through the written material; which ones depends on majority vote in class. You must see the films that the majority of your classmates want to see; you can’t free-lance and write about anything you want to. Films we’ve watched in the past include Heart of Darkness, Big Fish, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Troy, the Odyssey, Waterworld, Moby Dick, Fellowship of the Ring, and Pan’s Labyrinth. But I’m open to doing something different. For example, in “The Hero’s Adventure,” our opening class video, Joseph Campbell identifies space as the new frontier that invites the hero to test his skills in confronting the unknown. This suggests that science fiction might be a rich source of comparative film literature for this class. Consider the possibilities, from classics like Bladerunner, T-2, and the Abyss to Will Smith’s more recent heroics in films like I, Robot and I Am Legend. I’m also inspired by two sci fi films I saw for the first time recently, K-Pax (with Kevin Spacey) and Solaris (with George Clooney). And of course I’ll entertain reasonable suggestions from the class.
Course Calendar and Blackboard: The calendar of assignments for this class will be posted soon after the beginning of the semester on Blackboard. I’ll also give you a paper version when you receive this syllabus. Normally I don’t make extensive use of Blackboard during the semester, but there may be special exceptions, which is why it’s important for you to come to class. If there’s anything you need to check or do on Blackboard, it will be announced more than once in class. See SafeAssign, below.
Assignments: If all goes
according to plan, there will be 3 out-of-class papers. For each assignment, you’ll be asked to
choose one from a list of options for essay answer questions. These will be set
essay topics that require you to compare more than one work we’ve viewed or
read to that date. All your written
work for this course should be original, unresearched, and based on your own
personal reading of the books and/or viewing of the movies. I do
not want essays based on research, even if the research is properly
documented—and certainly not if it isn’t.
SafeAssign: Some of you may know that Blackboard has a plagiarism prevention service known as SafeAssign, essentially an equivalent program to Turn-It-In.com. I’ll be learning to use SafeAssign this semester. I’ll let you know whether you’ll be required to submit all or some of your papers through this program, but you should be prepared to submit papers electronically either through Blackboard or email if I ask.
I reserve the right to add other assignments if I think they’re
necessary, including pop quizzes if class discussion is boring because students
don’t keep up with the reading.
For more information on the design of the course and course readings, see
the attached links. You may ignore any
links that are not relevant to current assignments.
Introduction to the World Literature Sequence
Introduction to the Terms of Literary Analysis
Paper Topics: Comparing Gilgamesh to the Monkey King
Developing a Thesis for a Literary Critique
Paper Topics: Comparing the Monkey King to Odysseus
Final Exam for English 251 for summer 2007