MERLOT Search - category=525645& A search of MERLOT materials Copyright 1997-2014 MERLOT. All rights reserved. Sat, 27 Dec 2014 04:18:18 PST Sat, 27 Dec 2014 04:18:18 PST MERLOT Search - category=525645& 44 34 The Harvard Classics and Harvard Classics of Fiction The Harvard Classics and Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, selected by Charles W.Elliot and published (1909-1917) is considered by many literary critics to be the most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time. Bartleby has made it easy for you to locate and read these well-known Classics. 21L.001X Foundations of World Culture I: World Civilizations and Texts (MIT) This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throughout the semester, we will be asking questions like: How have different cultures imagined themselves? What are the rules that they draw up for human behavior? How do they represent the role of the individual in society? How do they imagine 'universal' concepts like love, family, duty? How have their writers and artists dealt with encounters with other cultures and other civilizations? Banks, Bailouts and Irish Literature This interdisciplinary course explores the relationship between Irish literature and economics from the 18th century to the boom times of the Celtic Tiger and the fallout from the recent banking crisis. 21F.068J The Invention of French Theory: A History of Transatlantic Intellectual Life since 1945 (MIT) In the decades following the Second World War, a cluster of extraordinary French thinkers were widely translated and read in American universities. Their works were soon labeled as &quot;French Theory.&quot; Why would sharing the same nationality make authors such as Lacan, Cixous, Derrida, Foucault or Debord, ambassadors of a specifically &quot;French&quot; theory? The course will explore the maze of transatlantic intellectual debates since 1945 and the heyday of French existentialism. We will study the debates on communism, decolonization, neo‐liberalism, gender, youth culture and mass media. This course is taught in English. 21L.705 Major Authors: Oscar Wilde and the '90's (MIT) At this distance Oscar Wilde seems not only to be on the threshold between centuries and between cultural-systems: in many ways he seems to be the threshold. His aesthetics look backwards to the aestheticism of Pater and the moral sensibility of Ruskin, and they look forward to Modernism. His antecedents are 18th century playwrights, and he opened a path of irony and structural self-reflexivity that leads to Beckett and Tom Stoppard. He was Irish but achieved his great successes in England. Arguably, his greatest success was his greatest public failure: in his scandalous trials he shaped 20th century attitudes toward homosexuality and toward theatricality and toward performativity. His greatest performance was the role of &quot;Oscar Wilde&quot;: in that sense he taught the 20th century how to be itself. 21F.022J International Women's Voices (MIT) International Women&#8217;s Voices has several objectives. It introduces students to a variety of works by contemporary women writers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and North America. The emphasis is on non-western writers. The readings are chosen to encourage students to think about how each author&#8217;s work reflects a distinct cultural heritage and to what extent, if any, we can identify a female voice that transcends national cultures. In lectures and readings distributed in class, students learn about the history and culture of each of the countries these authors represent. The way in which colonialism, religion, nation formation and language influence each writer is a major concern of this course. In addition, students examine the patterns of socialization of women in patriarchal cultures, and how, in the imaginary world, authors resolve or understand the relationship of the characters to love, work, identity, sex roles, marriage, and politics. 21L.430 Popular Culture and Narrative: Literature, Comics, and Culture (MIT) In this course, we will investigate popular culture and narrative by focusing on the relationship between literary texts and comics. Several questions shape the syllabus and provide a framework for approaching the course materials: How do familiar aspects of comics trace their origins to literary texts and broader cultural concerns? How have classic comics gone on to influence literary fiction? In what ways do contemporary graphic narratives bring a new kind of seriousness of purpose to comics, blurring what's left of the boundaries between the highbrow and the lowbrow? Readings and materials for the course range from the nineteenth century to the present, and include novels, short stories, essays, older and newer comics, and some older and newer films. Expectations include diligent reading, active participation, occasional discussion leading, and two papers. 21L.002 Foundations of Western Culture: The Making of the Modern World (MIT) This course comprises a broad survey of texts, literary and philosophical, which trace the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Intrinsic to this development is the growth of individualism in a world no longer understood to be at the center of the universe. The texts chosen for study exemplify the emergence of a new humanism, at once troubled and dynamic in comparison to the old. The leading theme of this course is thus the question of the difference between the ancient and the modern world. Students who have taken Foundations of Western Culture I will obviously have an advantage in dealing with this question. Classroom discussion approaches this question mainly through consideration of action and characters, voice and form. 21L.705 Major Authors: Rewriting Genesis: &quot;Paradise Lost&quot; and Twentieth-Century Fantasy (MIT) What does the Genesis story of creation and temptation tell us about gender, about heterosexuality, and about the origins of evil? What is the nature of God, and how can we account for that nature in a cosmos where evil exists? When is rebellion justified, and when is authority legitimate? These are some of the key questions that engaged the poet John Milton, and that continue to engage readers of his work. 21L.709 Studies in Literary History: Modernism: From Nietzsche to Fellini (MIT) How do literature, philosophy, film and other arts respond to the profound changes in world view and lifestyle that mark the twentieth century? This course considers a broad range of works from different countries, different media, and different genres, in exploring the transition to a decentered &quot;Einsteinian&quot; universe.