I. General Information

1. Course Title:
Honors Literature: The Great Books

2. Course Prefix & Number:
ENGL 1460

3. Course Credits and Contact Hours:

Credits: 3

Lecture Hours: 3

4. Course Description:

Honors Literature is a seminar course of the great books and literature of non-Western and Western writers and includes canonical, authoritative, and acclaimed texts across the ages such as epics, tragedies, novels, dramatic works for the stage, and poetry. The class will expose students to writers of genius, authors who have dreamed literature in all centuries and across all borders. It will invite students to inhabit verse and prose that represent values, systems of belief, and culture. Students will be called on to become readers, writers, discussants, and wonderers. Though literature is sometimes a mirror that works badly, the ultimate subject of this class is the students themselves, and it is up to them to name and understand the relationship between these extraordinary texts and our human condition. Courses in the Honors Program emphasize independent inquiry, informed discourse, and direct application within small, transformative, and seminar-style classes that embrace detailed examinations of the material and feature close working relationships with instructors. In addition, students learn to leverage course materials so that they can affect the world around them in positive ways.

5. Placement Tests Required:

Accuplacer (specify test):

Writing Honors College Level

Score:

6. Prerequisite Courses:

There are no prerequisites for this course.

7. Other Prerequisites
One of the following: ACT English score 24, ACT Reading score 24, Accuplacer Reading Comprehension score 78, Accuplacer NextGen Reading score 250, High School GPA 3.0, Or permission from the instructor or Honors Coordinator

9. Co-requisite Courses:

There are no corequisites for this course.

II. Transfer and Articulation

1. Course Equivalency - similar course from other regional institutions:

St. John's University, Honors 311 Great Books/Great Ideas, 3 credits
St. Mary's University, LH305 Literature and the Arts, 3 credits

III. Course Purpose

2. MN Transfer Curriculum (General Education) Courses - This course fulfills the following goal area(s) of the MN Transfer Curriculum:
Goal 6 – Humanities and Fine Arts

IV. Learning Outcomes

1. College-Wide Outcomes

College-Wide Outcomes/Competencies	Students will be able to:
Demonstrate written communication skills	Compose formal, analytical papers and participate in online discussion postings or journal entries.
Demonstrate reading and listening skills	Read masterworks for literature and discuss the ideas, conflicts, cultural, and ethical dilemmas presented in the great books.
Apply abstract ideas to concrete situations	Analyze a literary work to determine how the concepts such as justice, redemption, or liberty function in the text or in multiple texts.

2. Course Specific Outcomes - Students will be able to achieve the following measurable goals upon completion of the course:

• Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of seminal works in the arts and humanities (MnTC Goal 6);  
• Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context (MnTC Goal 6);
• Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities (MnTC Goal 6);
• Engage in the creative process or interpretive performance (MnTC Goal 6);
• Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities (MnTC Goal 6);
• Analyze thematic similarities and differences in literary works as a product of their time and authorship (MnTC Goal 6);
• Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society (MnTC Goal 6);
• Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry (MnTC Goal 6); and
• Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion (MnTC Goal 6).

V. Topical Outline

Listed below are major areas of content typically covered in this course.

1. Lecture Sessions

1. The origin of rhetoric
• What precisely is a great book?
• What are the basic rules of verse for anyone aspiring to be a classical rhetorician?
• How do we conceive of the original functions for rhetoric in the public sphere?
• How can we personally understand and inhabit the ideas of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery?
2. Literary theory
• Literary criticism
• Literary research
• Deconstructionism
• Modernism
• Post-modernism
• Feminist theory
• Marxist theory
• New Historicism
3. The Greeks
• Fifth century Athens
• Greek tragedy
• Aeschylus
• Sophocles
• Euripides
• Aristotle
• Plato
4. Tragedy concepts
• How does tragedy work?
• What are its elements as described in Aristotle’s Poetics?
• How might artifacts of literature be rhetorical, persuasive, and influential for all the societies?
5. Sacred texts
• The Theogony of Hesiod
• The Tao of Lao Tse
• The Bhagavad Gita
• The Koran and Ecclesiastes
• Questions to consider:
• What is the nature of these stories?
• What are the many ways that they differ in language, style, and intention?
• How are sacred texts, by nature, didactic?
• To what extent are sacred texts the cause of current effects?
• Now what?
6. Medieval and Renaissance texts
• Chaucer
• Dante
• Shakespeare
• Questions to consider:
• How is Shakespeare regarded now?
• How is Dante’s Inferno a literary contrivance?
• How do we read these texts today?
7. Modernity
• William Faulkner
• Albert Camus
• Toni Morrison
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Questions to consider:
• Why do the world’s greatest writers tell and retell stories about family?
• How do we bring meaning to these texts and technology?
• Which of these works will survive?
• How are canons affecting our world?
• How is our world affecting the canon?