COURSE CANCELLED

ENGL 130(F,S) J.M. Coetzee (W)

The contemporary South African writer J.M. Coetzee is a master of the art of fiction. In novels of exceptional intelligence and unflinching honesty, Coetzee relentlessly explores the human mind and its relationship to the sometimes inhumane world it must inhabit. Although his imaginative findings are often neither flattering nor reassuring, Coetzee's books are consistently brilliant and thought-provoking, and therefore deeply satisfying to read. They contain subtle and penetrating reflections upon such wide-ranging topics as the politics of apartheid, the philosophy of mind, the conventions of storytelling, the logic of torture, the psychology of sexual desire, and animal consciousness and animal rights. In this course, we will hone our analytic skills by closely studying a number of Coetzee's novels, including (among others) Waiting for the Barbarians, Foe, and Elizabeth Costello. In addition, we will read a selection of works by writers who have had a shaping influence upon Coetzee's imagination, such as Daniel Defoe, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Samuel Beckett. Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: active class participation and five papers totaling 20 pages. No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference given to first-year students.

Hour: RHIE