Sufi,Santigui Tounkara

The past week, we have been looking at Sufi poems from Attar, Hafiz and Rumi. The poems were all really religious. They also talked a lot about love. They used many symbols such as birds, flowers and god to discuss their ideas. The main focus of the poems was about devotion to god and love to god. I really enjoyed reading the Sufi poems because it expressed spirituality through literature, which I think its really nice to read.

Catullus,Santigui Tounkara

Catullus was very different from Sappho. Catullus's ideas were straight to the point without using a bunch of different ways to pass his message across.I think that I prefer that style because you exactly know what the author is talking about. Catullus was definitely using liberal writing and wasn't using any kind of censorship in the poems.Overall, I preferred Catullus over Sappho because of the fact that his ideas were clearer.

Presentations

This past week we observed everyone's different adaptations of a world literature syllabus. It was interesting to see how pieces of literature from all over were brought together to be taught in a single world literature course.

Overall, I did enjoy this class. As much as I complain that I hate writing papers, or dislike reading at times, it really was not as bad as i thought it would be. I took this course because I needed a year of english to fulfill med school requirements, but I have to say that I liked this class a lot more than some of my other science classes that I was taking.

Willie Ho

Our last presentations to conclude the class showed everyone's different outlook on what books constitute as world literature. I think that we can safely say that there are too many books in the world to label any as world literature. To be able to decide that, one must read all those books, and that would be impossible.

I enjoyed the presentations in the fact that people had different themes and I also liked to see if the few books I have read on their syllabus actually match their theme. The presentations have informed me of some books that I should read because they are books that everyone should read.

The class as a class was quite enjoyable. To say that it was interesting is an understatement. I think the most enlightening class experience was probably the introduction to Sufi poetry. Sufism was something I never heard of and learning about it was quite the experience. It made me understand poetry as a whole better, which I had absolutely no interest for prior to the class.

William Chiu

The in class presentations were very interesting considering the vast differences in classmates opinions on the subject matter for a world literature class. I especially liked how some classmates decided to have a course structure that included books from such popular book titles as Dracula, Lord or the Rings, and Twilight. I was excited how some included a film viewing of the movie adaptations of the books at the end of the class. Perhaps the widely used book among classmates was Chinua Achebe's "things fall apart" which i also used as well. this book would be an excellent source of knowledge of the customs and lives of the Obo people in Nigeria Africa. Giving not only accounts of their traditions but traditions adapted from the white settlers we can see the change in history as well. The presentations was a very good way for us classmates to see how each others thinks and and insight into books we may not have read or heard of before this class.

John Torres "Class Summary"

Throughout the class I learned a lot about different cultures and different periods through the text that we covered. The course also taught me to look at literature in a more analytical way. It was also interesting to read texts and compare them to very similar and different texts. The course concluded with student presentations. It was interesting to see how people took their own spin on the class and incorporated different things in their syllabus. It was also interesting to see how many students chose similar books to discuss in class. Many books often came up in different syllabuses. All-in-all I was satisfied with the structure of the class and was happy with what I got out of it.

Presentations,Santigui Tounkara

I think that most of the presentations were interesting. Everyone had a different syllabus and different ideas on how the class should be.It was unfortunate that we ran out of time for the last couple presentations and therefore, had to rush them.I also think that the presentations were a good way for the teacher to see how the class could be improved with new ideas from the students.Overall, I really enjoyed being in the class.I feel like I learned a lot of different style of literature. I will certainly try to have a World Literature class next semester!