Courses
WLIT 215 Topics in World Literature
This course offers close examination of global issues and features in literature, often those at the center of current critical interest. May be repeated for credit with different topics.
Distribution Area
Arts and Humanities-or-Global Learning
Credits
1 course
Fall Semester information
Amity Reading215A: Topics:Children's Literature
Spring Semester information
Karin Wimbley215A: Topics:The Graphic Novel in World Literature
This course examines the graphic novel as a global literary and visual form, highlighting how artists and writers use the medium to tell stories of identity, history, trauma, and imagination. Moving across national and cultural traditions, we will study graphic novels as works of art, political critique, and narrative innovation. Texts may include Art Spiegelman's Maus, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen, Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese, and selections from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Students will develop close-reading skills for both text and image, analyze the cultural and historical contexts of these works, and consider theoretical approaches to comics and visual storytelling. By the end of the semester, students will understand how the graphic novel contributes to world literature and expands our definitions of narrative, authorship, and literary canons.
Amity Reading
215B: Topics:Medieval Tabloid
Political intrigue, the Black Death, giants, plagues of the undead, penis trees, human sacrifice, werewolves, magic spells--these are the scandalous, the surprising, the utterly bizarre... and the completely historical. This class will explore a range of real texts from the global Middle Ages (roughly 500 CE to 1500 CE), all of which record weird and fantastical tales. We'll be reading about ancient Irish curses, as well as Italian ghosts, untranslatable Austrian manuscripts, and a French dog that was granted sainthood by the Catholic church. Readings will include selections from the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, M.R. James' collection of European ghost stories, the travel narratives of Arabic diplomat Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, and the Arthurian narratives of the Welsh Mabignogian. ENG 255/WLIT 215 fulfills the Global Learning requirement and counts toward the World Literature Program. It is also a pre-1660/pre-1830 English course.