We were all children once. We might think, then, that we know very well what it is like to be a child. But can we really access the world of a child — even the child that we once were? This course investigates the efforts of different authors to recover childhood throughout the twentieth century. As we read the work of Italian, French, German, and Irish authors, we will focus on space, and the role that space plays in the production of memory. From Dublin to Berlin, from Rome to Paris, we will tour, tracing the intersections between geographic landscape and the landscape of memory.
As we tour these cities, we will analyze how the authors perpetuate or critique the notion that the world of childhood can be regained. In creating spaces for children, how does the author relate past to present? How does the text encourage or undermine our own attempts to construct childhood? In this course, we will read both autobiographies and autobiographical novels, and we will ask whether there is, after all, any difference between the two. Can we ever return to the world of childhood, even in memory?

Course Objectives:
This course is designed to fulfill the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement. Throughout this course, we will continue to practice the skills of analytical reading and writing. On average, we will read one book per week, with days scheduled for rereading, revision, and research. We will learn how to craft clear and persuasive arguments about literary texts, entering into conversation with a scholarly community. In addition to two research papers, we will complete several brief exercises that guide you through the process of developing an argument about a literary text, from close reading to research.
Equally important as research is the process of revision. Besides reading literary texts closely, we will also practice scrutinizing our own work. Through practice in revision, we will see how writing, rewriting, and rewriting again offers us insights that thinking alone will not gain.

Required Texts:

1. A course reader. The course reader will contain brief essays on writing and research, as well as required texts, including:
a) Rosetta Loy, La porta dell’acqua/ The Water Door (trans. Gregory Conti, Other Press, 2006)
b) Walter Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit um neunzehnhundert/ Berlin Childhood Around 1900 (trans. Howard Eiland, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006) (Inclusion in reader pending publisher’s approval)

2. Elizabeth Bowen, Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood (inclusion in reader pending publishers’ approval): 978-0099287797
3. Francesca Duranti, La Bambina (1976)/ The Little Girl (trans. Judith Woolf, c. 2010) (inclusion in reader pending publisher’s approval) : 978-1848760868
4. Nathalie Sarraute, Enfance/ Childhood (trans. Barbara Wright, University of Chicago Press, originally published 1985, reprint edition, 2013): 978-0226922317

All Reading and Composition courses must be taken for a letter grade in order to fulfill this requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

 Prerequisites:  Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent.  Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.

Instructor pending appointment.