Schedule

The following is a schedule of readings for each week of the semester. The readings listed under a particular day are the readings that will be discussed in our meeting that day; therefore, you should complete the readings prior to our meeting (either on Monday or Wednesday). Reading Accountability Quizzes (RAQs) due on a particular day will cover material assigned for that day.

Most of the readings are available in our course textbook, The Norton Anthology of World Literature. You can find the volume letter and the page numbers next to the title of the reading. An asterisk (*) means that the text is not in the Norton. It will be made available on the course site.

Toward the end of the semester, we'll be watching a film. The film should be available to stream on demand, but I'm not yet sure of the cost. Please make sure to earmark some funds (no more than $20) to watch the film.

For readings in the Norton, please always make sure to read the introductory material for an author or a text. However, the introductory material as well as the texts written by the editors of the Norton intended to give you historical context for the readings are not literary texts; therefore, you cannot use them in your essays. I have marked texts that are not available for essay selection with a #.

Videos or podcasts that are intended to replace our Friday meetings will be listed in italics (these works are also not eligible for your literary analysis essays); I will likely add to these as the semester continues, but the viewing or listening time will never exceed our allotted Friday class time of 50 minutes.

Weekly Schedule

Unit 1: Orature and Storytelling

Monday, August 16th

  • “Preface” (A xv-xxii) #

  • "What is a Text?" *#

Wednesday, August 18th

  • "Petrus Alfonsi" (B 287-288) #

  • Petrus Alfonsi, "The Parable of the King and his Story Teller" (B 294)

Monday, August 23rd

  • "The Christian Bible: The New Testament Gospels" (B 18-20) #

  • Luke 15 and Matthew 13 (B 26-29)

  • Matthew 25 *

  • Video: "Goat's, Bookworms, and a Monk's Kiss" (3:23)

  • Mini-Lecture: On Parables and Interpretations (11:53)

Wednesday, August 25th

  • "The Thousand and One Nights" (B 597-600) #

  • Alf Layla Wa-Layla, "The Thousand and One Nights" (B 601-611 and 679-687)

  • Mini-Lecture: Why Tell Stories? (10:13)

Unit 2: Inscription, Writing, and Printing

Monday, August 30th

  • "Semna Stela of Senwosret III" (A 879-881)

  • Website: "Semna Boundary Stela of Senwosret III"

  • "Timelines" #*

  • "Babylonian Clay Tablets" #*

  • Video: "A Stray Sumerian Tablet" (5:54)

  • Video: "Seeing through clay: 4000 year old tablets in hypermodern scanner" (2:37)

  • Video: "A Cuneiform Tablet in the Digital Age" (2:46)

  • Podcast: "Early Writing Tablet" (13:19)

Wednesday, September 1st

  • "Ancient Egyptian Literature" (A 52-54) #

  • "Speech, Writing, Poetry" (A 1071-1074) #

  • "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta" (A 1074-1076)

  • "The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant" (A 1077-1082)

  • "Papyrus" #*

  • Podcast: "Rhind Mathematical Papyrus" (13:23)

  • Mini-Lecture: Inscription, Memory, Power (9:24)

Monday, September 6th: No Class, Labor Day

Wednesday, September 8th

  • Horace, "Ode 30" (A 1108)

  • "Petrarch and the Love Lyric" (C 151-154) #

  • Petrarch, Sonnet 333 (C 158)

  • Shakespeare, Sonnets 18 and 60 *

  • "Paper" #*

  • "The Rosetta Disk" #*

  • Mini-Lecture: Writing and the Erosion of Time (17:11)

Monday, September 13th

  • Exodus 24-26 *

  • Video: "A Master Craftsman Tests the Baffling Ark of the Covenant" (5:00)

  • Video: "How did the Ten Commandments become THE Ten Commandments?" (2:06)

  • Video: "The Ten Commandments" (1956, movie clip) (2:39)

Wednesday, September 15th

  • "Kebra Nagast" (B 578-579) #

  • Kebra Nagast, "The Glory of Kings" (B 579-597)

  • Mini-Lecture: Circulating Texts and Authenticating a Copy (18:21)

Monday, September 20th

  • "Abolqasem Ferdowsi" (B 195-197) #

  • Ferdowsi, Selections from Shanameh (B 197-219)

  • Video: "Shanahmeh: The Epic of Persian Kings" (9:22-18:00)

  • Mini-Lecture: Epistles and their Misinterpretations (17:50)

Wednesday, September 22th

  • "Ki No Tsurayuki" (B 1206-1207) #

  • Tsurayuki, Tosa Diary (B 1207-1214)

  • "Sei Shonagon" (B 1215-1219) #

  • Shonagon, Selections from Pillow Book: Sections 20, 257, and 529 (B 1224-1227, 1240-1241)

  • "Manuscript Culture" #*

  • Mini-Lecture: Recitations as Epistles (8:43)

Monday, September 27th

  • Shem Tove Ardutiel, "The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors" (B 345-346)

  • Martin Luther, "To the Christian Nobility" (C 755-757)

  • "The Gutenberg Bible" #*

  • "Manuscript to Print" #*

  • Video: "Wooden Movable Type Printing in China" (9:49)

  • Video: "Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press" (13:41)

  • Mini-Lecture: Printing, Mass Production and the Democratization of Reading (12:20)

Wednesday, September 29th: No Class, Midterm and Midterm Survey due at midnight

Midterm due Wednesday, September 29th.

Unit 3: The Book and the Library

Monday, October 4

  • "Li Qingzhao" (B 1150-1151) #

  • Li Qingzhao, From "Records on Metal and Stone" (B 1151-1156)

  • "Sugawara No Michizane" (B 1188) #

  • Sugawara No Michizane, "Note on my Library (B 1190-1191)

  • "Niccolò Machiavelli" (C 123) #

  • Machiavelli, "Letter to Francesco Vettori" (C 124-125)

  • Mini-Lecture: What is a Library? (16:40)

Wednesday, October 6

  • Ken Liu, "The Book Making Habits of Select Species" *

  • "Scroll" #*

  • "Codex" #*

  • "From Scroll to Codex" #*

  • Video: "Medieval Help Desk" (2:44)

  • Video: "Threads That Speak: How The Inca Used Strings to Communicate" (3:38)

  • Video: "The Making of the Wampum Belt" (8:24)

  • Mini-Lecture: What is a Book? (15:20)

Monday, October 11th: No Class, Fall Break

Wednesday, October 13th: Meet in Special Collections!

  • Video: "Introduction to Resources and Services" (2:33)

  • Video: "Inside the Archives with Kim Sims" (9:41)

  • Video: "History of the Book Introduction" (13:05)

Unit 4: Reading and Interpretation

Monday, October 18

  • "Tao Quian" (B1091-1092) #

  • Tao Quian, "On Reading the Seas and Mountains Classic" (B 1102-1103)

  • "Hanshan (Cold Mountain)" (B1104) #

  • Hanshan, "Do You Have the Poems of Hanshan in Your House?" (B 1107)

  • "Bo Juyi" (1129-1130) #

  • Bo Juyi, "Last Poem" (B 1141)

  • Video: "The History of Reading and the Literate Life" (18:13)

  • Mini-Lecture: "On Reading" (6:58)

Wednesday, October 20

  • "The Kokinshu" (B 1192-1193) #

  • Ki no Tsurayuki, From "The Japanese Preface" of the Kokinshu (B 1193-1197)

  • Video: "Objects We Love: Folding screens mounted with poems from the anthology, Shin kokinshu" (6:13)

  • Mini-Lecture: Interpretation, Anthologies, and Canonization (9:29)

Monday, October 25

  • "Christine de Pizan" (B 891-892) #

  • Christine de Pizan, Selections from The Book of the City of Ladies (B 893-917)

  • Mini-Lecture: Feminist Interpretations (12:33)

Wednesday, October 27

  • "Setne Khamwas and Naneferkaptah" (A 75-85)

  • Mini-Lecture: The Power of Books and Forbidden Knowledge (10:53)

Monday, November 1

  • "Miguel de Cervantes" (357-362) #

  • Cervantes, Selections from Don Quixote (C 362-397)

  • Mini-Lecture: Quixotic Reading (18:15)

Wednesday, November 3rd

  • Cervantes, Selections from Don Quixote (C 464-472)

  • "Why Should You Read 'Don Quixote'?" (5:38)

  • Mini-Lecture: The Metatextual Quixote (8:37)

Unit 5: Remediations

Monday, November 8th

  • "The Epic of Gilgamesh" (A 89-93) #

  • Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI (A 137-145)

  • Podcast: "The Flood Tablet" (13:19)

  • "The Hebrew Bible" (145-149) #

  • Genesis 6-9 (A 157-161)

  • Mini-Lecture: A Flood of Floods (8:33)

Wednesday, November 10th

  • Robert Crumb, Genesis 6-9 *

  • Scott McCloud, Selections from Understanding Comics #*

  • Video: "Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics" (7:50-17:39)

  • Video: "R. Crumb: The Book of Genesis" (2:57)

Monday, November 15th

  • "Sir Gawain the Green Knight" (B 835-837)

  • Selections from "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": Fitt 1 (B 837-847)

  • "Parchment and Vellum"#*

  • Video: "Making Manuscripts" (6:19) #*

  • Website: Images of the Pearl Manuscript

  • Video: "The Screenplay as Material Text" (2:30-13:20)

  • Read the first few pages of the Green Knight Screenplay*

Wednesday, November 17th

  • David Lowery, The Green Knight (Film, 130 minutes) *

  • Website: "Publishers See Green in ‘The Green Knight’" #*

Monday, November 22nd

  • No Reading: In-Class Presentations Due

Wednesday, November 24th: No Class, Thanksgiving Break

Monday, November 29th: No Class (Optional Zoom Office Hours), Final Paper and Exit Survey due at midnight

Final Paper due Monday, November 29th.