Course: ENG 484, Call No. 1867
Professor: Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta
Class Dates: Fall 99, Thursday August 26-Thursday, December 9, 1999
Class Time: Thursdays, 3:30-6:00 PM
Classroom: Reinert Alumni Library, Room L02
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:20 PM and by appointment
Office: Hitchcock Communication Arts Building (CA), Room 304A
Office Telephone: (402) 280-2522
e-mail: fajardo@creighton.edu
WWW Home Page: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/

This course offers a comparative and interdisciplinary study of the phenomenon of love and its representation in literary texts and other art works (painting, films, etc.) from antiquity to the present. Readings and class discussions will explore and seek to characterize notions and practices of love and sexuality in texts and art works from different cultures and historical periods including ancient Greece and Rome, ancient India, medieval and modern Europe, and twentieth-century North and Latin America. An important goal of the course is to reach a better understanding of the nature and implications of the love phenomenon in its social, cultural, economic, political, and historical contexts.

• Peter Bing & Rip Cohen, Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid
• Richard Burton & F. F. Arbuthnot, The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
• Joseph Bédier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
• Cris Newport, Queen's Champion: The Legend of Lancelot Retold
• William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
• Marquis de Sade, The Crimes of Love
• D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
• Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1) Term Project and Project Presentation (50%)

Students will design and pursue a project (paper, short story, play, set of poems, videotaped film or documentary, web site, art work, etc.) related to any aspect of the theory and/or practice of love in any historical period. All projects must be presented to the class. Projects may be papers (analytical and/or research) tracing, describing, analyzing, and explaining specific features of love and their historical/cultural foundations (MLA format required of all papers). Papers may also be close readings/analyses of any of the literary texts studied. Projects may also take the form of practical studies or gathering of information on current practices or concepts of love in specific contexts. In general, students are encouraged to choose material and media which are interesting and stimulating and should not feel limited to traditional academic topics or techniques. Art works of all sorts (painting, music, sculpture, etc.) are highly encouraged and are acceptable provided they yield substantial insight into some aspect of the subject matter. All projects must demonstrate substantial effort, thought, and understanding/incorporation of the course's issues and materials.

2) Contributions to class, participation, etc. (50%)

All students in the class are expected to not only actively and constructively participate in class discussions but also to regularly bring and contribute materials for such discussion in the form of art works, stories, or other information relevant to the topic under consideration. Students must be prepared to make such contributions for every class session.

3) Attendance and Other Policies

An attendance measurement will be calculated equal to the percentage of total class time attended. The course grade may not exceed that percentage (i.e. if the student attended only 75% of the class time, the course grade may not be higher than 75 or C, on a 0-100 point scale where 90-100 = A, 87-89 = B+, 80-86 = B, 77-79 = C+, 70-76 = C, 60-69 = D, and 0-59 = F). Notice also that, at the discretion of the instructors, any student missing more than 30% of the total class time may fail the course.

All students in the class are expected to observe the University's guidelines on student conduct as described in Creighton University's Student Handbook (see "Code of Conduct," and especially the section on "Academic Misconduct" dealing with problems of plagiarism, cheating, etc.).

COURSE SCHEDULE

Students must read the assigned texts for each class and bring materials (art works, stories, etc.) intended to illustrate or illuminate the significance of the items under discussion

Thu Aug 26

• Introduction
  

Thu Sep 02

• Archilochus, Sappho, Theognis, Callimachus, Ovid, Horace, Catullus, Propertius (in Games of Venus anthology)
  

Thu Sep 09

• Richard Burton & F. F. Arbuthnot, The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
  

Thu Sep 16

• Film screening
  

Thu Sep 23

• Joseph Bédier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
  

Thu Sep 30

• Cris Newport, Queen's Champion: The Legend of Lancelot Retold
  

Thu Oct 07

• William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
  

Thu Oct 14

• Film screening
  

Thu Oct 21

• FALL BREAK
  
  

Thu Oct 28

• Marquis de Sade, The Crimes of Love
  

Thu Nov 04

• D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
  

Thu Nov 11

• Film screening
  

Thu Nov 18

• Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

Thu Nov 25

• THANKSGIVING BREAK
  
  

Thu Dec 02

• STUDENT PROJECT PRESENTATIONS
  

Thu Dec 09

• Evaluations (bring a #2 pencil)
• STUDENT PROJECT PRESENTATIONS