World Literature: Trauma perspectives
Georgia State University
Course Description:
Trauma “violently opens passageways between systems that were once discrete, making unforeseen connections that distress or confound”
– Roger Luckhurst, The Trauma Question, 2008, pg. 3
Experiencing suffering and trauma can often be isolating. For many writers across the globe, writing about these experiences can be liberatory, cathartic, or self-affirming. In some cases, literature that describes events of trauma or violence can amend an incomplete or inaccurate historical record. It can also aid in some individuals finding peace in the wake of traumatizing events or contribute to their ability to make meaning out of their experience.
This class will explore fictional and non-fictional texts that tell stories of trauma from various countries around the world. As a class, we will develop an understanding of the goals and accomplishments of these texts. What is the purpose of conveying trauma in literature? What are the literary and formal techniques these writers use to communicate their experiences of suffering? We will ask ourselves to think about the historical and geo-political contexts from which these texts emerge, the possibilities for communication and connection by which these texts rely, and the ethical practices and constraints by which we as readers practice. The class aims to challenge existing understandings of trauma, how it is experienced in various contexts, and how it is communicated to an empathetic listener.
Readings Include:
Cao’s Monkey Bridge, Morrison’s Sula, O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, Silko’s Ceremony, and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.
Taught: Fall 2023
British Literature: Exploring the Canon
Georgia State University | Link to Course Syllabus: British Literature: Exploring the Canon
This course surveys British Literature spanning the Medieval Period through the turn of the 20th Century. As a class, we will consider the contexts that the covered texts were produced in, their lasting significance in the British literary canon, and the effect and resonance of the texts on us as individuals. The class practices questions about the political, social, cultural and historical impact these texts have had (and continue to have) on readers, listeners, and playgoers alike. The course is designed to help students build upon existing reading comprehension and analytical stills. Our primary goal is to help students develop their own academic voice to engage in the long-lasting academic conversation about this literary work.
Readings include:
Beowulf, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (“General Prologue,” “The Miller’s Tale,” “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”), Moore’s Utopia, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Wilde’s “Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Decay of Lying,” Select World War I Poets (Owen, Sassoon, Pope, Brooke, Graves, McCrae), Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Joyce Dubliners.
Standout Assignment: literary playlist essay | Assignment Sheet: Literary Playlist Essay
It is often the case that students struggle to connect with literary texts written several hundred years prior to their own existence. This Literary Playlist Assignment asks students to compose an annotated playlist for a pre-1800s literary text covered over the course of the semester. Students are challenged to think about the mood, feeling, and message of their chosen literary text and identify an appropriate playlist of songs that capture those qualities of the text. Students are excited to apply their contemporary interests to these texts that they otherwise may not identify with or recognize themselves in.
Taught: Spring 2023
ENGLISH COMPOSITION I: Finding The “I” in Narrative
Georgia State University
[Insert course description]
Readings Include:
[list readings]
[insert syllabus link]
Taught: Fall 2023
ENGLISH COMPOSITION II: Rhetoric and Composition
Georgia State University
[Insert course description]
Readings Include:
[list readings]
[insert syllabus link]
Taught: Fall 2023