LIT4611 East and West: Writings of Trespass
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
This course explores the captivating and dangerous ways in which writers construct foreign worlds of “East” and “West”—i.e. how they trespass, distort, and dream the border between themselves and other civilizations. From the Argentinian Borges’ depictions of Arabian labyrinths to the Syrian Adonis’ depictions of New York City alleyways, from the French Baudelaire’s meditations on Oriental opium-dens to the Persian Hedayat’s meditations on the madmen of Paris, from Camus’ staging of the apocalypse in Algeria to Darwish’s staging of the apocalypse in the migration of Palestinian refugees to European capitals, we will see how such authors represent unknown and outsider cultures. Ultimately, then, the course will interrogate the experience of radical otherness and its use as a complex force of creativity, consciousness, and imagination.
Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)