Welcome to Our Class

By its very nature, the English major curriculum tends to stay away from works written in other languages. That's understandable, given both the overabundance of worthy texts within the English-language canon, as well as legitimate concerns about the quality and availability of translations for works from other tongues. Nonetheless, we find ourselves in a golden age for international literature where far-flung contemporary authors like Roberto Bolaño, Elena Ferrante, and Karl Ove Knausgård are read widely and justly celebrated by their readers. There's real value in expanding one's literary horizons, and I hope this will be a worthwhile experience for you.

There's not necessarily an overarching theme to the selections I've made, other than attempting to present a diverse array of perspectives. Europe is, as one might expect, well-represented with four selections, but our other six books come from the eastern and western extremes of Asia, and the northern and southern boundaries of Africa and Latin America. Our time frame extends from WWII to the present, and many of the books deal with questions of identity, particularly coming-of-age stories, with special emphasis placed upon female perspectives.

Our Course By the Numbers

Let's lay out the details of the course in the style of Harper's Index:

• number of weeks we'll be spending together  :  15
• number of days off during the semester  :  5[1]
• number of books we'll be reading  :  10[2]
• number of decades spanned by the reading list  :  8
• number of female authors  :  7
• number of male authors  : 3
• number of continents represented  :  5
• number of books originally written in English  :  2[3]
• number of Nobel Laureates in Literature  :  2[4]

A Note on our Class Size

As some of you already know, we had some last-minute upheaval in scheduling last week. Philip Tsang, one of our English Dept. colleagues, had trouble with his passport and visa while trying to reenter the country and was going to be delayed for some length of time. As a result, his section of this course — which many of you were signed up for — was canceled and you were asked to join this section once the enrollment cap was increased. This also necessitated the cancelation of my Contemporary World Poetry class, and some of you have joined this course from that one.

I'm grateful for your flexibility in this matter, and I'm sure that Philip and our chair, Leah Stewart, are as well. I don't necessarily anticipate much change in terms of how I'm planning on structuring and running the course with two small exceptions: 1) because I place great emphasis upon participation and discussion, you'll need to be vocal members of the class to distinguish yourselves among the masses, and 2) though I'm loathe to rely on them, we're probably going to have to have more quizzes than I typically like for the sake of providing more grade opportunities and to see what students are (or aren't) keeping up with the reading.

Notes

1. Cf. our class schedule. Also note that this includes one day that's not an official university holiday when I need to be out of town for a family event — this will mean you'll have an especially nice Labor Day weekend.
2. Cf. our book list for this and the next four points.
3. Specifically, those written by Bessie Head and Zadie Smith.
4. Albert Camus (1957) and Heinrich Böll (1972). One of the pleasures of teaching this course in the fall is that the Nobel Prize announcements will be made in early October, allowing us to see if another one of our authors might be honored (though I'd think Zadie Smith is the only one with a legitimate chance to win).