Honors Seminars Fall 2012

Restricted to first semester UHP freshmen.

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." With traditions of metamorphosis from Homer and Ovid to the Incredible Hulk and Spider Man, this seminar offers examples from non-Western as well as (primarily) Western cultures. In addition attention will be paid to metamorphic operations generally, including especially metaphor and other figures of speech, translation, and cross-media adaptation. Readings are from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Dante's The Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman, Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," and other appropriate works. There will be opportunities to explore metamorphosis in film and other arts.