The Extraordinary

This course celebrates the “extraordinary” in literature. I firmly believe that all literature is extraordinary and exciting; for this course, I have chosen texts that allow us to compare visions of extraordinary deeds, places, and people. The extraordinary is produced through various assumptions about what constitutes the “ordinary” or the “norm” and the boundaries of the human, as we will see. Our literary texts chart the edges of perceived cultural norms; some discover the transcendent in the ordinary itself. We will read texts about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, including acts that trespass on perceived notions of gender norms, as well as fiction about were-wolves, were-bears, and mummies, viewed through intriguing historical and theoretical perspectives. Most texts involve cross-cultural contact and questions of translation, prompting us to raise wider questions about culture, colonialism/postcolonialism, and our position in language. Our discussion will be wide-ranging and lead us across the globe and through theoretical territory (psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonialism). We will find patterns and connections through texts by authors such as Sophocles, Naguib Mahfouz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Marie de France, Alexander Pushkin, Sigmund Freud, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Arthur Conan Doyle. No special knowledge or experience is necessary: just your enthusiasm and willingness to get to grips with some extraordinary texts.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

• Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
• Multicultural Courses: Identity, Pluralism, and Tolerance (IP)