College Seminar (101-7-24)

Topic

The Pleasures and Dangers of Reading

Instructors

Tristram Wolff

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L04: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

From its beginnings, the rise of the novel has been fed by anxieties about the overactive imaginations of passionate readers, and the dangerous effects of popular literacy. As studies of emotional over-investment and varieties of censorship, the narratives in this course address when and how literature and reading become dangerous (whether to individuals, social values, or the powers that be). How do the enthusiasm, madness, naivete, subversion, or transgression that reading leads to — prove revelatory? And, from a different point of view, how are concerns about the effects of reading and the spread of literacy partly motivated by the desire to control information, freedom, and social mobility? Broadly speaking, how do reading and literary interpretation teach us new techniques for how (or how not) to interpret the world? The course offers a brief introduction to the remarkable story of the modern novel, while exploring the influence of fictional and nonfictional literary works on us as readers.

Learning Objectives

• To practice critical reading, as preparation for college literacy across the humanities
• To increase facility in college writing through short essays analyzing literary readings
• To practice collaborative learning in a small seminar setting, through engaged and respectful dialogue, debate, and analytic discussion
• To discuss (and occasionally read about or explore) college life at Northwestern

Class Materials (Required)

(NB: available at Bookends & Beginnings)

• J. W. von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (ISBN ‎ 978-0140445039)
• Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (ISBN 978-0141439792)
• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (ISBN 978-0143107309)
• Toni Morrison, A Mercy (ISBN 978-0307276766)

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Weinberg First Year Seminars are only available to first-year students.
Add Consent: Department Consent Required
Drop Consent: Department Consent Required