The Perfect Spy
Course Description
Summary
Spoiler alert: Grief.
Grief turns us into the perfect spy, and in this course we will be interrogating contemporary novels to explore the ways in which characters and authors use lies, elaborate constructions, false realities, document and narrative manipulation as means of side-stepping, escaping, or fending off grief. We will be reading W.G. Sebald's Rings of Saturn, Katie Kitamura's A Separation, Dinaw Mengestu's Someone Like Us, John LeCarré's A Perfect Spy, and Ismet Prcic's Shards. Through reading and discussion, we will examine the lengths to which people will go in order to avoid the pain of grief and loss. We will also explore sociology and psychological texts, as well as a raft of poetry in order to interrogate our own notions about the various narrative ways contemporary literature might tackle this ever-present human (and not just human) experience.
Learning Outcomes
- examine the ways in which contemporary literature tries to answer or take account of the human experience of grief and loss
- explore notions of intergenerational grief, loss of love, loss of life, and various other forms of grief
- identify the ways in which the social sciences have created a language around grief and our responses to grief
- compare and contrast a literary approach to grief and loss alongside the approaches outlined through social sciences
Prerequisites
Please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GUDq6BdMlQtynjE310T9j3_lSvfOuaBzahd… to find the prompt for application to this course. Then, using the Registrar Office's form, submit your writing sample by
Corequisites
Students in 4000-level Literature classes are required to attend Literature Evening and Poetry at Bennington events, typically held on Wednesdays at 7pm.