First- Year Seminar:

Recent trends in the United States and around the world have led many to believe that the beliefs and institutions undergirding democracy are in peril. This Freshman Seminar examines how literary and theatrical works have explored both the promises and challenges of democracy. Can literary and theatrical works model democracy by articulating multiple points of view in ways that allow for informed civic deliberation? How can literary works allow for free, democratic expression in totalitarian and repressive political contexts? The course begins with an overview of democratic ideas. Next Plato's attack on democracy is taken up, followed by a unit on ancient Greek theater in the contect of democratic institutions. Shakespeare's ambivalent representation of proto-democratic ideas is explored. A large part of the course is devoted to the founding principles - and contradictions - of American democracy. We will read parts of Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and poems by Walt Whitman. Sustained attention will be given to the systematic exclusions of American democracy (notably, of women and African-Americans) and the efforts to form "a more perfect union," as we read authors such as Margaret Fuller, Susan Glaspell, and James Baldwin. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Course Attributes: EN H; FYS; BU Hum; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

First- Year Seminar:

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 111C

Section 01