The Odyssey (441 B.C.) by Homer [Robert Fagles, translation]
EQ: What makes a Hero?
KEY TOPICS: Verse, Epic, Oral Tradition, Poetry, Hero, Myth, Symbolism, Irony, Storytelling, Memory, Epithets, Literature
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: Joseph Campbell's Pathways to Bliss, Edith Hamilton's Mythology; film: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
August 28–October 6, 2017 [27 days]
The Thing Around Your Neck (2009) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
EQ: How many worlds can a person live in?
KEY TOPICS: Short Story, Ethnicity, Globalization, Migration, Identity, Feminism, Gender, Power, Voice
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: Adichie's "The Danger of A Single Story" and excerpts from Invisible Hand: Voices from the Global Economy (2014)
October 9–October 19, 2017 [9 Days]
Things Fall Apart (1959) by Chinua Achebe
EQ: How do the stories we know affect the decisions we make?
KEY TOPICS: Character, Proverb, Fate, Shame, Guilt, Gender, Violence, Prose, Novel, Independence, Tragedy, Outcasts, Sacrifice, Metaphor.
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: William Butler Yates' "Second Coming" and other poems from the Irish War of Independence, The Book of Genesis (Abraham and Isaac), various African proverbs, Aristotle's Poetics
October 23–November 17 [19 Days]
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini
EQ: What stories do we create about places we know very little about?
KEY TOPICS: Globalization, Religion, War, Inequality, Feminism, Violence, Family, Freedom, Power, Love
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: the autobiographical writings of Malala, Babur Nama's Journal of Emperor Babur
November 27-December 19 [17 Days]
Julius Caesar (1599) by William Shakespeare
EQ: When does world history become world literature?
KEY TOPICS: Drama, Theatre, Tragedy, Poetry, Power, Fate, Friendship, Pride, Ambition, Manipulation, Rhetoric, Consequences
Comparative Texts: Seneca's "On The Shortness of Life", "On Anger"
Research and Persuasive Essay Project: Urge Action on a Global Water Issue
See Syllabus page for assignment details.
The Periodic Table (1975) by Primo Levi
KEY TOPICS: Short Story, Bildungsroman, Memoir, Memory, Ethics, Youth, Fascism, Race, Religion, Antisemitism, Dignity, Vocation, Work, Language
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: Sholem Aleichem's short stories, Cervantes' Don Quixote (excerpt), Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (excerpt); film: Workingman's Death
Rashomon and 17 Other Stories (1914-1924) by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
KEY TOPICS: Short Story, Style, Truth, Reality, Anxiety, Modernism, Perspective, Existentialism, Adaptation
COMPARATIVE TEXTS: Franz Kafka's short stories, Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (excerpt); Akira Kurosawa's film adaptation, Rashomon