Dante's Divine Comedy is a world literature masterpiece that has come to be regarded as one of our greatest human treasures. It offers an almost encyclopedic presentation of classical and medieval ethics, philosophy, theology, politics, and some of the most imaginative, stirring and beautiful poetry ever written.
This course is a survey of some of the most important and engaging work being done by American women in the literary genre that Lorde calls a “vital necessity of our existence.” The selected texts – by Victoria Chang, Franny Choi, Natalie Diaz, Donika Kelly, Patricia Lockwood, and Claudia Rankine – touch on such broad-ranging themes as grief, te
Legal themes in literature reflect our fascination with a justice system that sometimes does not appear to be just. Great writers like Shakespeare, Melville, Kafka, among others, ask us to consider what happens when laws are not rational or punishments are unjust.
Euripides, the most ‘modern’ of the ancient Greek playwrights, examines human flaws as well as noble actions, and regularly challenges the assumptions of his audience. In this course, we will read and discuss three of his plays that confront various societal norms: Alcestis, which examines selfishness vs.
Join us for a close, guided reading of Homer’s great epic poem the Iliad. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in analysis and discussion of various aspects of the poem, including style, historical context, and the poem’s significance within the literary canon.
How did the Cold War era change the eerie inner landscape of the intelligence agent in our fiction? Has the spy become just one more variation on the antihero? How does he or she navigate times of greater moral ambiguity and cynicism?