![](https://moodle.smith.edu/pluginfile.php/1622732/course/overviewfiles/Sea%20WLT%20150.jpg)
- Instructor: Jeff Diteman
- Instructor: Jeffrey Diteman
- Instructor: Carolyn Shread
Category: 2024 Spring Semester
Journeys in World Literature
From the earliest Chinese poetry to the latest Arabic Internet novels, comparative literature makes available new worlds, and "newly visible" old worlds. To become "world-forming," one must realize one’s belonging to a given world or worlds, as well as one’s finitude. To rethink the relationship between literature and world, each section of this course focuses on a given genre, movement, or theme. Through topics such as “Epic Worlds,” “The Short Story” and “Literature and Medicine,” we consider the creation of worlds through words. (83 words)Dwelling Poetically
To introduce the pleasures of poetry, this course travels through poems on themes of journeying and dwelling, voyage and return, travel and home, wandering, war and immigration. Reading ancient Chinese songs and Greek epic to contemporary docupoetry and rap, we explore key elements of poetic art (voice, metre, tropes, image and suggestion). Students encounter less concrete effects too as they confront ambiguity, develop interpretive imagination, and surmise poetry’s powers and stakes. What is a poem? How and when does poetry affect our worlds? We also consider the art, ethics and politics of translation, and students compose and translate short poems. Credits: 4 {L}© Smith College 2024