Course Welcome

Welcome to ENGL 2100 09F - Literature & Humanities - Cultures Clashing

This course looks at how, in the past three centuries, various cultures, peoples, periods, points of view, or ways of thinking came into contact with one another, and how each were affected. These interactions produce both winners and losers. We'll look at some winners, but those winners usually end up writing the history books, not the literature that speaks to us today. So we'll spend a lot of time looking at the underdogs, the less privileged, and the disenfranchised, and the victims, because they're the ones who created the material that has stood the test of time.

We'll categorize these clashes within large intellectual, historical,and social periods and movements, but our focus will always be on individual experiences, because that's where the power of literature lies.

Everything you need to know for this class is in the syllabus, which you can find here. Instead of requiring you to buy an anthology that might contain all these texts (the cheapest one out there is about $90), I've made all the texts you'll need to read are available for you to download from the course site in Folio.

You might find the syllabus intimidating because of its length, but I made it a one-stop-shop for you in this course. Along with the usual material about course policies and procedures, academic integrity, and accessibility accommodations, it also contains the course schedule, explanations for all your assignments, the prompts for the papers you'll be writing, and the rubrics I'll be using to evaluate your papers and your discussion posts.

The course consists of 24 modules. Each module has a task list in Folio, so you should start and end each module there. Each module contains some background information on the author and/or the work we're reading, a podcast that offers a middle-of-the-road interpretation of the work, a number of discussion questions, and a quiz. You should listen to the podcast after you've finished reading the text, because it won't make sense to you until you are familiar with the text.

I introduce myself in the syllabus, so you can out a name and a face to this collection of verbiage. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say about these texts, and how they may relate to your lives.

So jump into Folio and take a look at what we'll be doing and reading. It promises to be an interesting semester.

Dr. P