Literature, Culture and Society - Period 1

For centuries, literary and other cultural texts have changed the way people think and look at the world. They reveal social injustices and societal ills, offering ideas and ammunition for social change, thereby helping people to imagine different, better realities. A single text may trigger an individual's struggle for emancipation, but also that of a group or a nation. This course will explore the important ways in which literary texts have contributed to societal change and have liberated people throughout the centuries up to the present.

The texts we discuss have instigated individual readers as well as collectivities to discover and become aware of injustices, unfairness and abuse. This course analyzes that process, using the following questions as leading threads in the discussions: Which rhetorical strategies employed in the texts evoke the readers' empathy and possible agency? How do the texts simultaneously assist in emboldening the reader, strengthening an emerging community, and gaining acceptance from a wider audience? In which way do they balance realities that are already being lived and imagined possibilities that have yet to materialize? How do they interact with other expressions of the struggle for emancipation, by way of imitation, opposition, appropriation? And, finally, how do they function within the communities that they have helped found, how are they remembered, recreated, redefined, and to which purposes?

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) awards credits based on the ECTS system. Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.