CPLT 110-000: Intro To Literary Studies (Spring 2010)

Content: Throughout history, the powers that be--whether kings or emperors, congresses or workers councils--display an odd preoccupation with literature, and not necessarily because they love to read or visit the theater. Ever since Plato exiled the poets from his ideal city in The Republic, literature has been recognized as a potential threat to established order: books are banned, even burned, poets stand trial for their poetry, and authors flee their countries of origin.  What can we learn about literature from the fact that writing a novel can get you in trouble with the law, and sometimes even get you killed?  Why is it that, on the other hand, literary writing is often involved in social struggle, political upheaval, and revolutionary situations?  Obviously, works of literature can be about politics: novels, plays, and poems frequently depict political events or take up the political questions of the day.  But evidently literature can also act, producing political effects and consequences of its own. 

In order to think through these questions, we will analyze works of literature that, from ancient Greece to the present day, depict political events and articulate political questions.  But as we examine the literary representation of politics, we will also take up the possibility that literature is a site where politics can happen.  What happens when we read political documents like manifestos, speeches, and revolutionary declarations alongside novels, plays, and poems?

Particulars: This is a writing intensive course that will include short bi-weekly papers (2-3 pages), and three longer papers (6-7 pages).  Regular attendance and class participation will also be required.

Texts: Our readings may be drawn from Plato, Sophocles, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Melville, Wollstonecraft, Poe, Sade, Baudelaire, Zola, Breton, Wilde, Toni Morrison, J.M. Coetzee, and Salman Rushdie.  We may also examine texts like the American Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, The Communist Manifesto, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address."