課程概述 |
Course Description
What can language do for love? What can we decipher in expressions of love? What aspects of our relationship with the other are implied in the way we converse? The topic of this course is love. In this course, we learn, practice, and enhance our English by analyzing texts of love and creating our expressions for love. The texts include love songs, love poems, critical essays about love, a short story about love, and three love films.
This course consists of three units:
UNIT 1 How to Listen to the Differences in Love
Does the one he sings to love him back? What does he try to do through this song? What further development of the romantic relationship is she proposing? How does the loss of love differ from one song to the other? In these four weeks, we listen to English love songs to analyze the different perspectives and stages implied in the lyrics and melody. In one of the weeks, students look for the English love songs they feel relevant to themselves and analyze the particular cases in the songs. In the last of these four weeks, we read a psychology article from the book Love and Addiction to explore the differences and complexities between love and addiction.
Creative Work: Students learn to hear and analyze the undertones of the songs and practice the skills on the songs of their own choices and contexts.
(First Essay: “Love and X”)
UNIT 2 How to Say “I Love You”
How do great poets like Shakespeare and Yeats say “I love you”? Does “loving you” mean differently for women, men, and other genders? What understandings of love, attitudes for the other, and capacities for affection are implied in these expressions of love? In these four weeks, we read love poems by male, female, and queer writers to observe what they do for love with language. In the last of these four weeks, we read Roland Barthe’s philosophical reflection on “I love you” in A Lover’s Discourse to reflect on the impossibility and possibilities of these three words.
Creative Work: Students learn to find their own ways of expressing love and reflect on what are implied in their expressions.
(Second Essay: “In Other Words, I Love You”)
UNIT 3 How to Quarrel and Converse in Love
In this unit, we watch three films and read a short story. We watch the three films that capture the dialogues between a man and a woman in different stages of their relationship (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight). Across these stages, we analyze the different viewpoints of characters, their intentions behind utterances, their connections and conflicts, how they understand and misunderstand each other, and how they open and continue conversations….
Creative Work: Students analyze what utterances do to conversations and create conversations as methods of approaching, bonding with, and distancing from others.
(Third Essay: “The Strangest/Most Extreme/Most Magical Thing a Conversation Can Do”) |
課程要求 |
Requirements
1. Attendance and Participation in Class: 25%. Active class participation is crucial. This class involves not only lectures but also a lot of activities and discussions of different kinds. You will actively absorb, practice, and create.
* F is given to those with more than 3 absences without prior permission. Every absence takes 5 points away from your total score.
2. Weekly Assignments: 75%. The 12 assignments should be submitted before the deadlines—no late submissions. There will be weekly assignments before class, so the students can be more engaged in class. The assignments include (1) reading/watching/listening to the texts about love and (2) writing to engage with them. The writing assignments involve small exercises or short responses to questions in relation to the texts and three essays (200 words). I estimate that you may need to spend 2-5 hours on the assignments every week, but this varies from one person to another.
*All the assignments are due at noon on the due days. Late submissions are not acceptable. If you have special reasons and want to make up for missed submissions, please propose to me your way of compensation.
*scores: 3 essays each 10%+other 9 writings each 5%=75%
*I will carefully read everything you write to me, and they will be involved as important materials and foundations for the class. But I will only “mark” and return the three essays.
3. There are no exams—no mid-term or final exams. In this class, learning is designed to be a long-term process consisting of weekly efforts instead of a rush of cramming before exams. There will be no homework for the mid-term and final weeks. |