Course Info: CSI-0282

CourseCSI-0282 Defamiliarizing the "East"
Long TitleDefamiliarizing the "East:" Writing the Unseen
Term2018F
Note(s) Textbook information
Meeting InfoEmily Dickinson Hall 4 on W from 1:00-3:50
FacultyKimberly ChangüUzma Aslam Khan
Capacity25
Available16
Waitlist0
Distribution(s)
Cumulative Skill(s)Independent Work
Multiple Cultural Perspectives
Writing and Research
Additional InfoStudents are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.
Description

The critic David Lodge describes defamiliarization as "overcoming the deadening effects of habit by representing familiar things in unfamiliar ways." Our focus was on re-perceiving the East, asking what it is, how we see it, how we do not see it, how we could see it, all in the hopes of more closely, critically, and compassionately developing different habits about where and how to look. Not deadening habits: living habits. Course requirements included reading international fiction and non-fiction; in-class presentations; critical response papers; creative writing; and keeping a regular "sensory journal" in which individual, cultural, and/or universal habits are re-examined (e.g., on dress, foods, music, war.) and periodically shared with the class. Bringing supplementary materials to the class (e.g., an article that made you rethink a comfortable position on the 'other') was strongly encouraged.