Thursday, December 12, 2013

New Spring 2014 GVPT Course: GVPT 449K Politics Through Popular Fiction and Short Stories

New course for Spring, 2014: "Politics Through Popular Fiction and Short Stories"

Taught by: Professor C. Fred Alford

Course Meets: Tue, 4-6:45pm
(Only prerequisite is that you be a GVPT major)

Idea of the Course
In one way or another, all the books and short stories in this course are all about outsiders.  Some are outsiders by choice, most not.  Each is an outsider in a different way. Pecola, the protagonist of Toni Morrison’s "The Bluest Eye," a young black girl finally driven mad, only wants blue eyes. Ben, of Doris Lessing’s "Ben in the World" (a work of science fiction) only wants to find somewhere he belongs. Gregor Samsa, in Kafka's short story "The Metamorphosis," wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach. 

Required books:

Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child
Doris Lessing, Ben in the World (sequel to the first book)
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (and "Politics and the English Language," provided)
Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (collected short stories)
Albert Camus, The Stranger
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener (short story)
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (short story)
Toni Morrison, Bluest Eye 
Course will be discussion/seminar format.

Grade will be based on class presentations, weekly comments on ELMS and 2 short 4-5 pages papers.

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