Reading Fiction: Imaginary Journeys

Drawing of Don Quixote on horseback carrying a lance and leading Sancho Panza on a donkey.

Photograph of the drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier. (Photograph of the drawing courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This image is in the public domain.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21L.003

As Taught In

Fall 2015

Level

Undergraduate

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Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

Great works of fiction often take us to far-off places; they sometimes conduct us on journeys toward a deeper understanding of what's right next door. We'll read, discuss, and interpret a range of short and short-ish works: The reading list will be chosen from among such texts as "Gilgamesh," Homer's Odyssey (excerpts), Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (excerpts), Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Saleh's Season of Migration to the North, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, John Cheever's "The Swimmer," Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K, Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," Toni Morrison's Jazz, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Beckett's How It Is, Calvino's Invisible Cities, Forster's A Passage to India. As a CI-H class, this subject will involve substantial practice in argumentative writing and oral communication.

Other Versions

Related Content

James Buzard. 21L.003 Reading Fiction: Imaginary Journeys. Fall 2015. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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