Literature and the Mind

Catalog description

This course explores the relationship between ideas of the mind and consciousness in literature. Long before Sigmund Freud, poets, playwrights, and novelists investigated the human experience of knowing and experiencing one's self. After Freud, new concepts of the mind have reshaped how we understand creativity in both writing and reading literature. This course will introduce you to the pleasure and insight of literature through a representative selection of literature by European and American writers, and will include selected readings in psychology. Topics may include madness, identity, melancholy, deviance, memory, or creativity.