01 MW6 CAC 29422 FERGUSON SC-205
03 S 9:00-11:55 CAC 33871 MORAN SC-115
01-Detecting Texts
The premise for this course is a simple one: reading is exactly like solving crime. This semester we will use the metaphor of the detective to guide our introduction to literature. Like the detective character in whodunits and tales of mystery, readers of literature must sift through large numbers of clues and red herrings in order to uncover meaning from a literary text. But, like the novice detective, how do readers know what is most important and what is only a wild goose chase? Other than entertainment, what can fictional detectives' crime-solving strategies tell us about real readers and reading practices? By reading mystery and detective texts this semester, we will hone our critical skills as close readers and become better readers by becoming better detectives. Like the perfect crime, the perfect novel, play, or poem presents itself to us so that we can study not only what happens, but also how and why. Authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Henry James, Robert Browning, Susan Glaspell, Walter Mosley, and Vladimir Nabokov.
03-When asked why they don’t read novels or other forms of literature, many people will apologetically respond, “I never have enough time” or “I just don’t like it.” A more exact reason is that many people—intelligent people—are not yet that good at it. Everyone knows that writing well is a skill, but fewer people think the same about reading. However, reading critically is a skill that can be sharpened with practice—and once this skill is developed, a person can understand and enjoy literature. Sports, cooking and playing musical instruments are all more interesting and rewarding the better one is at them—and the same is true for reading and thinking about language.
Our motto will be a remark made by the American poet Ezra Pound: “Literature is news that STAYS news”—and our goal will be to read a number of works in a variety of genres to learn how they are still “newsworthy.” We don’t read old books because they are old—we read them because they are still new and still portraying the human condition so well. Likely readings will include works by the poets William Blake, William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost; the anonymously written Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; short novels by Henry James, Flannery O’Connor, Paul Auster, Muriel Spark and Robert Louis Stevenson; Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot; and short stories by John Cheever and James Joyce. We will also read, early in the semester, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. Attendance, reading quizzes and short papers are course requirements.
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