Fall 2005

CZ 324 • Milan Kundera and World Literature - W

Course Description

This course explores the life and work of one of the world's greatest living authors. We will trace Milan Kundera's political and literary path from his communist poetic youth to his present post-modern Francophilia and compare his novels with those authors he himself considers his predecessors and influences in European literature, such as Frank Kafka, Witold Gombrowicz, Lawrence Stern, Robert Musil, and Meguel Cervantes. Special attention will be paid to his essays, which provoked heated political and literary polemics.

Grading Policy

eight-page papers and one re-write 70% 10-minute presentation 10% Final 20%

Texts

The Joke Farewell Waltz The Book of Laughter and Forgetting The Unbearable Likeness of Being Slowness The Art of the Novel Testaments Betrayed Course packet

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