and up-to-date version of the schedule and requirements
for this class. In addition, supplemental materials will be linked
to this page regularly throughout the term.
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Teacher: Dr. Eva Thury |
Office hours: M 1:00-2:00, R 10:00-11:00 |
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Office Phone: 895-1711 |
and by appointment |
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Office: Macalister 5035 |
email: thury@drexel.edu |
Goals: The primary goal of this class is for us to work together to read and write about literature. However, our focus is not to study the literature in itself. Rather, we will be trying to understand the complex processes of reading and writing. We will analyze various factors - historical, linguistic, and cultural - that contribute to the ways in which you read. In studying how people respond to literary texts, we will address such issues as how the "meaning" of the same text can change over time, why different kinds of texts seem to demand different kinds of readers (i. e., do you read a poem differently from the way you read a short story or a play?), whether the author of a work can be considered its final "authority," and perhaps most importantly, what the social and political implications are of becoming conscious of the factors influencing the ways you read and interpret .
This course gives priority to your reaction to texts, rather than to the texts themselves. In this class, we will regard meaning as something that readers create with a text rather than as something they find in texts. We will study reading as a culturally-acquired process, and we will examine, through writing assignments, the interaction of the processes of reading and writing.
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The works we read in this class are diverse but, many of them come under the category of literature or literary analysis. Before you go on, with taking this course, or with reading this syllabus, please read my views about literature. They will help you understand the goals of the course, as well as its daily functioning. You get to these views by clicking on the frog on the right. |
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