Homer/Ellison: The Odyssey and Invisible Man

Semester and Year	FA 2010
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1515
Section	001
Instructor	E. Frances White, Laura Slatkin
Days	Tue
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM

Notes/Restrictions

Same as V29.0141.

Description

Who is the “man of many ways”? Who is it who declares “I am nobody but myself”? This course creates a dialogue between Homer's Odyssey and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man , the masterwork that evokes the Odyssey even as it reimagines the scope of the twentieth century novel. We will focus on the historical and cultural specificities of each text but will also pursue the synergies and energies promoted by reading them together. We will thus consider what the ancient world has to say to the modern novel, and how modernity might reanimate a key text of antiquity. Among the topics we will consider: formations and representations of subjectivity in antiquity and modernity; the status of race and ethnicity; the structuring effects of kinship, marriage, institutions, the state, the law; the cultural poetics and politics of narrative. What stories are we telling about “ourselves,” and/or about “others,” and to what ends? We will draw upon secondary readings in literary theory, gender studies, critical race studies, and other social sciences. Students need no background in these materials but do need critical energy and discipline.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)