ENGLISH
109
Spring 2019
Fall 2018
Literature and Business
An introduction not only to representations of business in literary texts, but also to the business of literature itself. The course explores the representation of modern commerce and entrepreneurial life, financial and legal structures in industrial and advanced capitalism, doctrines of prosperity and economic growth, and the emotional, moral, and social life of women and men working in business. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description from our current offerings (taught Spring 2017).
Every Other Term
Your department or program fields a variety of courses to meet distinct educational needs. Please explain how this course fits into your department's plan for participating in the general education curriculum of the College. The sector panel will want to know what is distinctive about this course along with the other courses your department lists in the sector that makes them suitable for the sector requirement.
This course complements ENGL106 "Literature and Law" and ENGL107 "Literature and Medicine" -- both sector-fulfilling courses that demonstrate the application of critical and close reading models of analysis onto a broadened range of materials. The design of this course was a joint effort between the instructor and the Undergraduate Executive Committee in English, and the flexible final project in particular is an effort to open this course to the more general capacities for interpretation that distinguish general requirement courses in the College.
One-term course offered either term
Arts & Letters Sector
Jed Esty
Standing Faculty
Standing Faculty
We have developed this course as part of a suite of classes designed to combine the university-level study of literature with a direct attention to the historical representation of the professions, thus Lit and Law, Lit and Medicine, Lit and Business.
These courses not only address social and thematic content related to professional practice and life, but also compare the kinds of intellectual and evidentiary norms that define knowledge in the humanities and in the practical arts and sciences.
This is an introductory course; we anticipate Wharton undergraduate will take it to fulfill their Flexible Gen Ed requirements. College students may take it to fulfill Sector 3 (if our application is successful). Humanities majors may take the class as a stepping stone to majors in English or History.
1) Introduce a mix of College and Wharton undergraduates to the varied and changing representations of modern commerce, corporate and entrepreneurial life, financial and legal structures in industrial and advanced capitalism, doctrines of prosperity and economic growth, and the emotional, moral, and social life of women and men working in business from 1850 to the present.
2) Foster an intellectual and analytical understanding of the cultural divide at Penn between applied/professional/pragmatic education and the liberal arts curriculum.
3) Teach close, logical, and systematic analysis of texts looking for sociohistorical meaning and symbolic/allegorical complexity.
4) Improve written and oral skills of evidence-based argumentation and composition.
5 x 400 words
1 x 1500 words
1 x 2000 words
5500 words of writing total = approx 20 pages
none
group participation and reading journals
Sector II - History and Tradition