Overall, I personally really enjoyed this course because we got to explore different parts of the world and different stories from perspectives that I have not learned that much about. Even though we didn't go through a big portion of different literatures of the world, I appreciated that we go a close and specific look at different areas from different time periods. In previous classes, I always got a general overview that was often too dry and never gave me enough information for me to actually put it into good context.
In the beginning, one of the most unexpected things about this course was just getting to look at literature books I actually got to enjoy. I went into the class thinking that the majority of the texts we would be reading would be from a dominant western perspective from Victorian England or something along these lines. I wasn't expecting to read about all these different cultures that I have never experienced or heard from. To me, this was a good and very enlightening surprise.
One thing that changed me was just, similar as I have said, just getting to learn about nonwestern cultures that aren't really dominant. I was also surprised how centered the course was on our own learning. We got to do research excursions based on what we wanted to explore further from the different texts that overall gave us a better understanding of these texts. I also appreciated how creative we could get by using different platforms for our research/other projects.
I agree, Monique! Reading the various texts from this course and having them all represent cultures that I have not engaged with as much as the standard Eurocentric literature that I am used to was the best part of this course. My favorites had to be Pachinko and Hay ibn Yaqzan for this reason. They covered cultures that I was unfamiliar with, and I felt like I learned a lot because of that! I am curious which book was your favorite?
ReplyDeleteHi Monique! I definitely agree that the sheer diversity of the texts we visited were impressive. We also didn't just skim over them; the research excursions and class discussions forced us to really be immersed in these areas, which I very much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteHi Monique, I was also at first somewhat worried about what the courses books were going to be like. I was expecting books from very niche backgrounds with very specific subjects to be most of the reading that we would do in the course. However, I was happily surprised by how culturally significant some of the books were. Antigone is one of the most important books from its time period. Hayy Ibn Yaqzan introduced new ideas to the world. Equiano paved the way for the abolishment of the slave trade and eventually slavery.
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