LITERATURE
Reading for Your Life
AUTUMN LN109
Thursdays
Tutor: Peter Labanyi
We are living in a volatile world that overwhelms our capacities to make sense of it and of our own precarious existence. It is here that classic modernist fiction can provide psychological mirroring and inspiration. This course thus focuses on how key European novelists – Kafka, Proust, Thomas Mann, Camus - can help us with our struggles: to create values, meaning and a coherent self. Our approach - a master-class in active reading - will deepen literary interpretation into personal exploration. We will develop the positive potentials – dreams, visions, moments of intensity and wholeness – to be found in these texts and, not least, in ourselves.
This course is suitable as a continuation for former students as new texts are being used. However, new students are most welcome - no previous knowledge is required.
| BELFIELD | Map | |
| 10 Thursdays | Sep 27, Oct 4, 11, 18, 25, Nov 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 | 7.30pm - 9.30pm |
| FEE €190 | Print Open Learning Application Form 2012.13 or ring (01) 716-7123 for Laser/credit card payment | |
Tutor Details:
Peter Labanyi (BA, PhD, DipPPPsych) lectured in German Studies for two decades at the University of Limerick. A qualified psychotherapist and experienced group facilitator, his teaching aims - as does his writing - to integrate a passion for personal growth with a love of literature and ideas. His courses appeal not only to the intellect but are also experiential, interactive and exploratory.
Reading List
Camus, A., (2006) The Myth of Sisyphus, tr. Justin O’Brien, Penguin
Camus, A., (2006) The Outsider, tr. Joseph Laredo, Penguin
Franz Kafka, (2007) Metamorphosis and Other Stories, tr. Michael Hofmann, Penguin
Mann, T., (2008) Death in Venice and Other Stories, tr. David Luke, Vintage
Proust, M., (2003) The Way by Swann’s, tr. Lydia Davis, Penguin
* As this course comprises close reading in class rather than lectures, please ensure that you have copies of the translation and edition that is specified
No preparation will be required for the first, introductory night. Subsequently, each author will be spread over two weeks. Since all the texts chosen are short (including the Proust: we will be doing less than half of the first volume!), the amount of reading should average out at around fifty pages per week. The tutor will specify the sections that will be studied in detail in class -and that could be more like twenty pages per week.
The order will be: Thomas Mann ('Death in Venice' only); Proust ('Combray' only); Kafka ('Metamorphosis' and 'The Country Doctor'); finishing with Camus.
