We will read travel narratives, representing four genres and four centuries; the course focuses on how English, European and American writers use an exotic world to illuminate or criticize their own cultures, either by showing readers what they are not, or by finding familiar values in a foreign setting. We also will study how ideas of the alien change to reflect contemporary values and problems.
Reading list: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Michel de Montaigne, "Of Cannibals"; William Shakespeare, The Tempest; Samuel Johnson, Rasselas; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Elizabeth Bishop, Geography III; Jack Kerouac, On the Road; Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist; Walker Percy, "The Loss of the Creature"; Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Requirements: draft and revision of four short papers, active class participation. This course fulfills the General Education "Writing Intensive" requirement.
Not offered in 1999-2000.
Last Modified: Wed Apr 21 16:24:21 1999