ENGL 4428 Unconvential Love Stories
The Ancient Greeks recognized and named numerous types of love, from eros (sexual passion), to pragma (long-standing love characterized by compromise, patience and tolerance), to philautia (love of self, one side of which—narcissism—was destructive, while the other side helped you to love others). This course will look to contemporary literature and critical theory to help us contemplate what it means to love in the 21st century. We will consider personal, cultural, generational, historical, racial, and colonial conditions placed on contemporary love. Through texts, films, and visual art, we will examine the literary representations of interpersonal love – love of family, friends, lovers, and communities – but also consider interspecies love and our familial relationships with the natural world. Alongside a major research paper, this course will include a seminar presentation, an interview assignment, and a public humanities project.