ENL 200: Studies in Literature
General Education requirement: 3A- Literature
A study of selected readings dealing with a special topic chosen by the instructor. Recent special topics include New England Literature, Children's Literature, the Artist in Literature, Black Music, and Black Literature. May be repeated with change of content. Cross-listed as BLS 200; LST 200.
Class #11011 Course information
3.00 credits
Section 7102:
Undergraduate Lecture
Class: #11011
Cost: $
Status: C
Absurdism! Whimseycore! Slipstream! Let's read some stuff that makes us ask, "What in the world was that?" And then try to come up with answers. Description: Absurdist literature pursues an inquiry into human behavior and rationality (or a lack thereof) via unexpected juxtaposition, non-sequitur, far-fetched circumstances, and a tendency toward the abandonment of traditional plot structures. Absurdist and related literary forms are often quite funny, but that's not all there is to them: they are a response to a world in which the systems we traditionally use to make sense of our experiences and actions as well as the actions of those around us have become unstable, and, paradoxically, an effort to make sense out of the nonsensical by meeting it on its own terms. In this class, we will work to make sense out of a series absurdist and absurdist-adjacent literary texts, most of them relatively contemporary, as well as to understand how they might help us make sense of the world around us.