The University of Chicago Summer
Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange II - 20

Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange II - 20


Course Code

HUMA 14100 20

Course Description

This section of Reading Cultures considers the centrality of movement, migration and travel to the study of culture. Turning to texts such as Homer’s Odyssey, Amitav Ghosh's In An Antique Land, and Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place, we ask how cultures travel and change, and analyze the ways that language, narrative, and objects function as mediums of cultural movement and transmission.

Course Criteria

This course is only open to incoming UChicago transfer students. Please visit the Summer Session Incoming Transfer Students page to apply.

This course must be taken alongside HUMA 14000, Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange II, as well as an afternoon writing course that runs August 3-September 11, 2026 (no class September 7).

Instructor(s)

Valerie Levan

Session

September Term

Course Dates

August 24th - September 11th

Class Days

Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

Class Time

9:00 am - 11:00 am

Core Course

Part of UChicago Core Curriculum

Modality

In-Person

Other Courses to Consider

These courses might also be of interest.

  • Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange I - 10
    Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange I - 10

    This course in the Reading Cultures sequence is devoted to the analysis of "collection" as a form of cultural activity. Reading texts such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, The Arabian Nights, and Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men that offer collections of stories in lieu of a single tale, we consider the extent to which culture comes into being through the accumulation, assemblage and transmission of narratives.

    In other words, students in this course learn how to think about narrative and storytelling in terms of the production, organization and control of culture. Who gets to collect and to tell the stories of a culture, we ask, and what difference does their identity make to cultural representation?

    Residential