K. Ormand (Classics)
4 HU, WRi, 4 Hours
Fall Semester FYSP 109-01 MWF 11:00-11:50
If Homer’s Odyssey is set in Arkansas in 1929, is it still the Odyssey? What if it takes place in a single night in New York City in 1985, and Odysseus is depicted as a guy returning home from a date? In this course students will read the Odyssey, a comic epic that stands at the beginning of written literature in the West. We will then examine a series of works that, to a greater or lesser degree, evoke, reinterpret, and rewrite the Odyssey from a variety of points of view. Works to be studied include Atwood’s Penelopiad, the Cohen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou, and Martel’s The Life of Pi. Students will read movie and book reviews as well as critical interpretations, and will explore several central themes: travel as a means of defining oneself, the journey home as a function of identity, and the problems that arise when a work’s narrator turns out to be a liar. This course is writing-intensive, and students will develop their composition skills and participate in critiques of their colleagues’ essays.