Courses:

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Topics covered in this course are available in the calendar below.

World Literatures will focus on the concept of the contact zone. What happens when cultures with different ideologies and norms come into contact with each other through exploration and colonization? We will examine how the complex issues surrounding race, gender, language and power are represented in both poetry and prose from African, Caribbean and South Asian perspectives. Our discussions will focus on not only the historical situations that these texts represent, but also the literary conventions these writers use to express these unique stories.

As a HASS-CI (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Communication Intensive) course, World Literatures is both a writing and communication intensive course. Students are required to produce at least 20 pages of polished writing with an emphasis on revision. This course will include 3 papers; 2 will be 5 pages in length and the final paper will be 10 pages in length. Two of these papers will involve a revision process that will help to sharpen your critical writing skills. The oral component of this class requires all students to actively participate in our weekly discussions on the assigned readings. These discussions are truly the backbone of the course because much of our critical thinking happens while we share ideas with one another. Towards the end of the semester, each student will make a formal 10-minute presentation related to the ideas in his or her final paper.

Participation includes both attendance and contributing to class discussions. Failure to attend and/or refusal to engage in discussion will adversely affect your grade. Keeping up with the reading will help to facilitate your participation. If you do need to miss class for a valid reason, please contact me by email in advance.

Periodically you will be given short writing assignments that will be discussed or revised in class. These assignments will keep you up to date with your reading and will give you the opportunity to see what your fellow students are thinking and writing about. These assignments will be factored into your class participation.

As a Communication-Intensive subject, this course emphasizes development of written material. The first two papers will be exercises in literary analysis without the inclusion of secondary sources. In other words, your ideas and evidence should come from you, the text, and our in class discussions. The third paper, however, will allow you to investigate secondary sources (i.e. articles or books written on the text or subject matter you have chosen to write about) to support your ideas, but the argument, as always, must be yours. Further details for the requirements of each paper are available in assignments. The argument for the final paper must receive approval from me before you begin writing.

Papers must be submitted at the beginning of class on the day that they are due. No electronic submissions will be accepted. Please be sure to hand your papers in on time. Lateness will result lower paper grades. For each day that your paper is late, your final grade will be lowered by 1/3 (i.e. a B+ will become a B after one day, a B- after 2 days and so on. Weekends will be included). Because of the writing intensive nature of this course and the swift reading pace, extensions may only be granted in extreme situations (illness, family crisis, or other equally difficult circumstances). They will not be granted for work conflicts so be sure to plan accordingly among all of your classes. You will need to contact me at least 24 hours before the paper is due in order to receive an extension. All extension papers will be due on the next class day and are not guaranteed to be returned at the same time as the other students' papers.

At the end of the semester you will fulfill the oral component of this Communication Intensive course by giving a presentation on your final paper. It is customary for people in the literature field to present their new work at conferences around the country and the world. We will have a miniature World Literatures conference that will give each of you the opportunity to present your ideas on one or more of the works we have read and to answer questions about your contribution to literary criticism. Presentations should be no longer than 10 minutes. Along with your presentation, you will be required to submit an outline of your talk and a bibliography.

Intellectual integrity is imperative in all of our work. Plagiarism, co-opting of another's work, will not be tolerated in any course. This is the Literature Section's policy on plagiarism:

Plagiarism-use of another's intellectual work without acknowledgement-is a serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else's work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student's own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution, consult the style guides available at MIT Writing and Communication Center and the MIT Academic Integrity.

For any use or distribution of these materials, please cite as follows:

Alisa K. Braithwaite, course materials for 21L.007 World Literatures, Fall 2006. MIT OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

Please see readings for more detailed information about the texts mentioned below.