Mar 29, 2024  
2022-2023 Westminster College Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Westminster College Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ENG 149 - Rebels and Deviants

Semester Hours: 4

This course, designed primarily for non-English majors, will focus on the eternally popular idea of the rebel and of acts of resistance as represented in Western art, literature and philosophy. The syllabus will assign a range of short and long fiction, plays, films and essays from various national traditions that depict diverse examples of the human being who cannot live by received notions of self, gender roles, and social obligations. Students will consider various dimensions of rebellion in childhood and adulthood, in the realms of politics, law and family, and in matters of spiritual and existential crisis, as emerge from class discussion and readings. Essential course questions include: When is the rebel a hero? When a fool? Are the consequences of represented rebellion triumphant or disastrous? Can rebellion be comic? What kind of impact has the canon of rebellion art had on human history? Readings will be by Brecht, Camus, Chesterton, Haare, Heller, Ibsen, Melville, Morrison, Paine, and Stevenson.

Intellectual Perspective: HC