Clcs 1101 syllabus PDF

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CLCS 1101 fall 2020 Fiona Somerset Professor: Fiona Somerset [email protected] she/her. Please feel free to call me by my first name. If you’re more comfortable with it, you can call me “Professor” or “Professor Somerset”. Office hours: Wednesday 12-1 and Friday 11-1 on Zoom. Please email me to set up an appointment. You may also email me OR your TAs with questions about the course. This course is designed to be accessible to all participants. No assignments will be timed, and deadlines are elastic. I am happy to make provision for disabilities and other individual needs as they arise: please talk with me sooner rather than later. My attendance policy this term will be extremely lenient: you should not be in class if you have any symptoms of illness, or any concerns about covid exposure. You can do the work online when needed. If access to needed resources for online work or pod project work is a problem for you, please let me know so we can find solutions. TAs: Introductions and office hours posted in your sections. Office hours will be online. Textbook: The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 4th edition, vols A-C. Available as a package deal for all three volumes through the UCONN bookstore or at other fine establishments, for rental or purchase, new or second hand. If you have difficulty affording textbooks, please talk to me. Supplementary materials on HuskyCT. Course Description: In this course we will study the world through its literatures, starting from the earliest written sources and selecting a range of writings up to around 1600 CE. Rather than trying to tell an overall story about cultural change in this period, we will consider how a range of cultures across the world used writing, and how it was a means to convey the imaginary. We will focus especially on writings about travel, since this will help us to understand that the world has always been interconnected, and has always involved contact between people different from each other, even when movement from place to place was generally slower than it is now. There will be NO EXAM, NO MIDTERM, and NO TIMED TESTS. You will do the bulk of your coursework in a pod of five people who you will work with during your discussion sections. Your pod people are your community: I want you to look out for each other. If somebody is not participating, please tell me right away. (If you personally are struggling, you don’t have to tell your pod the details, but PLEASE come to me: let me know how I can help.) You will be expected to do the readings, attend lectures and your discussion sections when possible or do the work online when you can’t be there, and participate in our collective inquiry by completing creative exercises in your pod (storyboarding, map drawing, etc), online written responses, and a short creative assignment. Rather than quizzes, I’ll assign scavenger hunts that help you to gain deeper knowledge of the reading and concepts. Learning Outcomes: In this course you will gain some insight into how a range of early human cultures use writing to imagine their world otherwise and to describe their encounters with the unknown. I will ask you to appreciate what is relatable in the writings we encounter, but also to learn skills for engaging with what seems strange and unfamiliar to you. In responding to what you read, you’ll build critical thinking and writing skills. Through play, you’ll learn more about how creativity can deepen your understanding.

Scheduled Readings and Assignments 8/ 30: Introduction 9/ 1: Stela of Taimhotep A 86-88 Jesse Amar’s discussion sections will meet. Other sections will do the first pod assignment online. 9/6 LABOR DAY 9/8 REITH LECTURE 4. Responses due Friday 10pm 9/13 Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor A 873-9 9/15 The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tables VII to IX only, A 122-30 Pod project 1 due in your section, or Friday by 10 pm 9/20 The Jataka A 1297-1303 9/22 REITH LECTURE 1 Responses due Friday 10 pm Scavenger Hunt 1 due Friday by 10 pm 9/27 Classic of Poetry A 1317-25 9/29 Aristophanes, Frogs A 1087-96 Pod project 2 due Friday by 10 pm 10/4 Ovid Metamorphoses A 1029 lines 1-5 (introduction, 1043-52 (Pierides vs Muses, with Ceres and Proserpina included) 10/6 Ibn Arabi, Gentle Now Doves, B 341-3, Alfonso X, The Scorpions, 343-4, Shem Tov Ardutiel, The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors 345-6 Pod project 3 due Friday by 10 pm 10/11 Marie de France, Bisclavret B 299-305 10/13 REITH LECTURE 2 Responses due Friday 10 pm Scavenger Hunt 2 due Friday by 10 pm 10/18 Farid ud-din Attar, The Conference of the Birds B 368-80 10/20 Dante Alighieri, Inferno (cantos 1-5) B 394-416 Pod project 4 due Friday by 10 pm 10/25 Kebra Nagast B 579-97 10/27 REITH LECTURE 3 Responses due Friday 10 pm 11/1 Marco Polo, The Diversity of the World B 922-9 11/3 Ibn Battuta, Travels B 930-8 Pod project 5 due Friday by 10 pm Scavenger Hunt 3 due Friday by 10 pm 11/8 Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies B 893-913 11/10 Somadeva, The Red Lotus of Charity B 1076-81 Pod project 6 due Friday by 10 pm 11/15 Li Qingzhao Records on Metal and Stone and selection of poems B 1151-9 11/17 Ki No Tsurayuki Tosa Diary B 1207-14 Pod project 7 due Friday by 10 pm Scavenger Hunt 4 due Friday by 10 pm (but we will take it after Thanksgiving) Creative Assignment introduced Thanksgiving Break

11/29 Popol Vuh C 517-29 12/1 Huarochiri Manuscript C 534-39 Pod project 8 due Friday by 10 pm 12/6 Creative Assignment Workshop 12/8 Creative Assignment Workshop Reading days – individual consultations about honors papers and creative assignments. A chance to finish any overdue work. Creative assignment and honors projects due Saturday Dec 18. If you have a busy exam period we strongly suggest handing them in earlier! How to do well in this class: In case you missed this, in this class there will be NO FINAL EXAM. NO MIDTERM. NO TIMED TESTS. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to each other. Breathe, smile, laugh. Wear your mask and wash your hands. This will be a very unusual semester. I am here for you. If you need any kind of support, please ask me: if I don’t have the resources or training to help you, then I’ll refer you to someone who can. You will do well in this class if you read the assigned texts, read the lectures and slides, do the assignments, and show up for your pod (whether in person or online). Please, please, show up for your pod not only by doing your share, but by building a community where you can joke around and play with what we’re learning. Let me know if you’re struggling. Deadlines can be moved. Your well being is the most important thing. All work will be graded on completion: you’ll do well if you do it. Scavenger Hunts count for 20%, Reith Lecture responses count for 20%, the creative assignment counts for 25%, and your pod projects count for 35%. If you want extra credit, you can complete an extra pod project with your group (most weeks there will be a choice of two options) or ask me about doing an extra written response. You can do an honors conversion for this course by writing an essay on one of the readings. Please see me in office hours if you want to pursue this....