One of the great cultural universals is Love, which we will investigate against the backdrop of societal forces that give shape and meaning (and trouble) to this idea. Specifically, through studies of literature, popular media, and three great spiritual traditions, we will examine how cultural belief systems regarding love and desire enter into human and literary plots, and how the modern marketplace in particular shapes our attitudes. Seniors will co-lead classes, participate in setting course goals, help establish assessment standards, and prepare culminating independent projects that teach the class -- through visual arts, performance, creative writing, or other forms of aesthetic persuasion -- about contemporary ideas regarding desire, the marketplace, and love.

Texts: Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises; Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel According to Jesus; Zen Flesh, Zen Bones; Raven Steals the Light and Other Haida Tales; Allen Ginsberg's Howl; Edith Wharton's stories; August Wilson's Fences; Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Love (selections); James P. Carse, excerpt from The Silence of God (handout); David Wallace, excerpts from "Shipping Out," January 1996 Harper's (handout); Still Killing Us Softly (video); Blake Edwards, The Brothers McMullan (film).

Tentative "big questions" for the course:

What are the origins of human desire? What are the objects of our desire? How are human desires shaped by culture in general?

How are desires influenced by modern consumer culture in particular? -- e.g., by ideals of modern capitalism; by advertising and other marketing strategies; by images in the popular media; by electronic technologies; by modern forms of transportation and communication; by modern education; by modern religions; by modern ideas about what makes life worthwhile?

What do I want my life to be like? How do my desires affect or depend on my relations with other people and the world?

What about love? What is love? What is its place in my life? Whom do I love?

• William Wordsworth's poetry
• Franz Kafka's fiction
• T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
• Walt Whitman's poetry
• Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Brief reflections on course readings and themes in relation to your life, e.g.: Ads pasted or taped in, with your comments. Daily bookkeeping: "I need___"; "I want___"; "I tend___"; "I spend___". Reflect on why, what, and when you buy. Photos of yourself or your family that you give to others: describe the "public" images of self communicated in them, & comment. Transcribe & reflect on popular song lyrics (a student noticed that the Stones' song "Satisfaction" is a critique of marketplace seductions). Why do you feel hollow after fulfilling some desires? How love and desire are expressed in one of the readings. Periodic entries on the status of some abiding unsatisfied desire (for a certain car?). "When I need love, I get a present instead." -- is this ever true for you? What forms of love do we really need? Things I do to be "marketable" -- to be accepted or to fit in. Is love everything? -- examine the cultural fantasy of romantic love, the perfect partner, etc. Response to a media article on a topic related to the course. Buddhism is a practice to help you minimize desire; but if desire were minimized in my life, would my life feel worthwhile? Do I have to "earn" my parents' love? Sixteen different ways in which people use the word "love." Connections with favorite fall term Modern Literature senior course readings; with junior-year readings. Describe a scene at a sports event -- a Sonics game or whatever: a pandemonium of desire? A 7-year-old neighbor and his desires. What a shy person desires. Collect and paste in a series of ads for the same product or similar products, and comment on what desires or needs they appeal to or try to create. Copy a short quotation from a reading, video, or class discussion, and reflect on it: its meaning, its value, its relevance or irrelevance to your life and why this is the case, its basic soundness or unsoundness as an idea, its beauty (or ugliness), its truth (or falsehood), its "selling points," any connections you can make between it and other readings or ideas. A current event or story: how it is managed in the news; what it tells us about the marketplace or about desire. "Comfort": is it really desirable?

• that we're here to learn together and teach each other something worthwhile.
• that spring semester of the senior year may be the first opportunity you have had in which you can be engaged, in a place where you are known and valued, with academic learning and exploration that may have no immediate practical significance beyond itself. (That seems to me an extraordinary and rare opportunity.)

• What are our desires with regard to this class? What do we want the class to do for us -- for each of us as an individual, and for all of us together as a group?
• What kind of marketplace do we want this room and this course to be?
• What will lead us to desire to come to this class 3x/wk, spring term of senior year?
• What should class sessions be like? Who will determine the content and form of class sessions, and by what process? Should we set expectations about daily preparation and participation?
• What should be the goals of assignments?
• To develop a broad, general overview of course material
• To develop deep understanding of course material?
• To do independent research in the library, via Internet, outside school, etc.?
• To get us all to participate actively in class?
• To help us all teach each other?
• To help all experience joy in learning?
• To help each find and/or make personal meaning of the material?
• To discover or make connections across disciplines?
• To inspire our creativity?
• To inspire broad, wide-ranging projects?
• To inspire depth, precision, eloquence, and elegance in projects?
• To become better readers? better critical thinkers? more creative thinkers? better writers? better speakers? To develop stronger arguments, better use of information, logic, reason?
• To help all communicate in various media including music, film, visual arts, performance? If so, should "creative" expression as well as discussion be required? How much oral expression? How much written? How much revision and editing should be expected?
• How will we balance individual and whole-class goals and desires?
• What do we want from each other?Do we have obligations or responsibilities toward each other?
• What's the teacher's role? To set agendas? guide you? question you? answer your questions? get you questioning each other? assess your work? serve you in your individual/group endeavors?
• To whom will class participants be accountable? What forms should accountability take?
• What should be the standards of assessment? What would "A" achievement look like? ("B" , etc.) Who should participate in assessing, and in what ways? What form(s) should assessment take besides comments and grades 2x/term?)