Studies in Literature and Culture (385-DL-20)

Topic

Anti-Hero in Literature and Contemporary Culture

Instructors

Peter Kaye
Peter Kaye has been teaching literature and humanities courses at Northwestern since 1988. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in English Literature and Humanities in 1989. His dissertation, which he completed while working full time in educational publishing, was eventually turned into a book, Dostoevsky and English Modernism, published by Cambridge University Press and translated into Chinese. Like many SPS students, he changed careers, becoming a full–time administrator at SPS in 2003, serving as Assistant Dean of Undergraduate and Post-baccalaureate Programs at SPS for 17 years.

Meeting Info

Online: TBA

Overview of class

This course explores a variety of texts in which leaders are pushed to psychological, moral and political limits. Via literature--from ancient Greek texts, to Renaissance drama, to modern fiction--students enter into the community of readers that began more than two-and-a-half millennia ago and take another step along the path toward becoming truly educated leaders.

This course is conducted completely online. A technology fee will be added to tuition.

Registration Requirements

Note: This course is limited to School of Professional Studies students only. Undergraduate students in other schools at Northwestern are not permitted to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites: none.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

Identify and learn from literary examples of leadership, where leaders are pushed to psychological, moral, and political limits.
Demonstrate active reading of complex texts; recognize key passages; raise questions; appreciate complexity and ambiguity; comprehend the literal and figurative uses of language.
Construct an appreciation of literary forms, recognizing how forms of poetry, fiction, and drama shape the meaning of a text; appreciate how genre generates expectations and shapes meanings.
Interpret texts with an awareness of and curiosity for other viewpoints and cultures.
Write and reflect on issues of leadership in literature, demonstrating competence in conversation and writing using literary vocabulary.
Construct an appreciation of literature's ability to elicit feeling, cultivate the imagination, and call leaders to account as human beings.

Class Materials (Required)

All required reading and multimedia materials are available online, or through Course Reserves or Library Media in Canvas.

Class Attributes

Asynchronous:Remote class-no scheduled mtg time