Course Listings
JAN 101-Love in Literature and Film
Chad Arnold
chadarnold22@gmail.com
Was Aristotle right when he said love is composed of "a single soul inhabiting two bodies," or is it little more than "a delicious torment," as Ralph Waldo Emerson has said? If you have ever loved or wanted to love more fully, then you should take this class.
In this challenging course, we will seek a deeper understanding of love in all its literary, filmic and poetic dress, including the way writers and thinkers over the centuries have defined, described, lived and died by it. In this course we will look at a wide variety of ways and situations in which we love, including both secular and religious view-points. And of course, we will look at the ways in which love manifests itself in our own lives -- through our family, pets, and friends; through our boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives -- as well as through art! Let us count the ways.
We will examine a variety of texts and contexts. We will be reading poetry and essays by philosophers and psychologists and poets and shamans. We will also be looking at a few films, as well as a number of paintings. We will be reading selections from Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Mingus, and Simone de Beauvoir; by Rumi, Ovid, and Henry VIII; by Tolstoy, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and Leonard Cohen. We will read "Lady Midnight." While there is no substitute for genuine participation in the world, we will engage these great writers, filmmakers, poets and painters in an effort to learn how we might live our lives more fully through love.
Division: Upper
Prerequisites: ENG 004 and ENG 005.
Reading List:
Selections from The Bible
Basis for Final Grade: Write a 5-page formal essay responding to one book, poem, film, painting etc. that we discussed in class (15%); write a 10 page formal essay that establishes connections between at least three works we've discussed in class and three related experiences/works outside of class (20%); write 5-10 pages of poems (15%); quality of class participation (50%).
Course Fee: $15.00
(Cost includes photocopies, and lunch on the last day.)
Course Schedule: MTuThF, 12:00 - 2:30 PM
Spaces Reserved for Freshmen: as many as needed, with instructor's permission
