Required Texts

Please note that all of these texts – in the editions specified – are required. It is imperative that each student brings his or her copy of the text to be discussed in class each day.

  • Satrapi, Persepolis (Pantheon, 978-0-375-71457-3)
  • Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, tr. Strachey (Norton, 978-0-39330451-0)
  • Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor, 978-0-38547454-2)
  • Garcia Marquez, Innocent Eréndira: and Other Stories, tr. Rabassa (Harper Perennial, 978-0-06075158-4)
  • Kafka, The Metamorphosis, tr. Bernofsky (Norton, 978-0-393-34709-8)
  • Reader:  (Xanedu, 978-1-58390-235-6)
READING SCHEDULE
FEBRUARY
12thFrost, “The Gift Outright” and Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning”
14thGandhi, Selections and UN General Assembly, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
19thFreud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Chps I-IV
21stFreud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Chps V-VIII
26thAchebe, "Things Fall Apart” Pt 1, Chps 1-8
MARCH
1stAchebe, "Things Fall Apart” Pt 1, Chps 9-13, and Pt 2
5thAchebe, "Things Fall Apart", Pt 3
7thFanon, “On Violence”
12thArendt, "On Violence"
14thSatrapi, "Persepolis", pp 3-79
19thSatrapi, "Persepolis", pp 80-153
21stCelan, Yevtushenko, al-Braikan, and al-Aziz, Selected poems
–March 26th–April 2nd Easter Recess–
–APRIL
2ndMandela, “I Am Prepared to Die” and Tutu, Selections from No Future Without Forgiveness
4thXiao, “Hands” and Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Chap 1
9thMahfouz, Selections from The Time and the Place
11thMárquez, "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother"
16thDworkin, Selections from "Pornography"
18thAnzaldúa, Selections from This Bridge Called My Back and Lorde, “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” and Daly, Letter of Response
23rdJin, Selected poems and Lahiri, “The Third and Final Continent”
25thKafka, “The Metamorphosis”
30thUnamuno, “Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr”
MAY
2ndNietzsche, Selected aphorisms
7thSecond Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes
9th Merton, Selections from Contemplation in a World of Action
14thHardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons” and Shiva, Selection from Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
16thFeynman, “Atoms in Motion”
21st ––––> FINALS MEETING
23rdRobert Lawrence Kuhn "Can Religion Withstand Technology?" and Theodosius Dobzhansky, "The Teilhardian Synthesis"