CPLT 110-001: Intro To Literary Studies (Spring 2010)

Content: What role does memory play in literary writing? Writers readily use their own and others' memories as primary content for their narratives, giving rise to a range of genres from memoir and historical narrative to autobiography and fiction.  Yet what is the difference between memory and literature?  Does memory retain its status when written down?  Can works of fiction also be works of memory?  This class will explore the different ways that memory provides the foundation of novels, essays and films: as identity, as something that is lost and (re)found, and even as something bought and sold.  From these multiple perspectives we will seek a deeper understanding of the relationship between memory and its literature. Ultimately, we will ask why fiction may be memory's preferred literary form.

Particulars: The completion of this course fulfills Emory University's freshman writing requirement.  Thus in addition to reading and exploring the texts, this course will also focus on developing your academic writing skills.  Through the use of different types of writing assignments-such as reading responses, short essays, and a final paper-this class will allow you to practice, improve and develop your ability to analyze texts and to produce written work of a college level.

Texts: James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain; Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban; Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann's Way (C.K. Scott Moncrieff & Terence Kilmartin translation); Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting