ENGL 65.01 Walking

Students in this course will circle around a set of deceptively simple questions, all of them framed by an overarching question: What does it mean to walk? Should walking be regarded as a fundamental human activity or as a literary convention carried over into everyday life? Why has walking long been regarded as a vehicle for thought and discourse: a privileged mechanism of knowledge production? Is there a difference between a country walk and a city walk? What is the relationship between walking and time, walking and place? Why should walking have emerged, in certain works of contemporary literature, as a principled rejection of mechanization, modernity, and the capitalist mode of production? And what does walking mean for those who cannot walk? To address these questions, students will read texts by such practitioners and theorists of walking as Thoreau, Walter Benjamin, W. G. Sebald, Rebecca Solnit, Simon Armitage, Robert MacFarlane, Geoff Nicholson, and others. Students will also use their own walks as opportunities for composing works of critical self-reflection, observation, and world-making.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:W

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

Junior Colloquium: No Course Group