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English 3009  Myth and Culture (2 Sections)

The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote that “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” Myth and Culture is a course about such stories, stories so powerful that they shape the ways in which people come to understand the world and its possibilities. Our work will range from the distant past to modern times and will focus on loss (which, when you think about it, is really the human condition): Gilgamesh, Adam and Eve, Job, Oedipus, Demeter and Persephone, Orpheus and Eurydice, Dido and Aeneas, King Lear, Mother Courage, and the Joads.

Requirements: The course will require dedicated daily work, several short pieces of writing, and a final examination. (Group 5)