COML 2271 - [Reading for the End of Time]

(crosslisted) ENGL 2971
(GLC-AS, LA-AS)

Spring. Not offered: 2022-2023. Next offered: 2023-2024. 4 credits. Student option grading.

N. Melas.

This course will explore how in the body of world literature humans have construed, narrated, imagined the end of time and of the world and sometimes its new beginning. Spanning from ancient epic and origin myths through nineteenth century novels and colonial narratives to contemporary science fiction, we will inquire, through our reading: what is a world? How does the labor of the imagination construct a world or the world and deconstruct or undo worlds? Readings will range widely across time and world space (with authors such as Hesiod, Balzac, Marquez, Murakami, Alexievich, Bacigalupi) and will include attention to contemporary theories of world literature.