Photograph of the drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier. (Photograph of the drawing courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This image is in the public domain.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. James Buzard
MIT Course Number
21L.003
As Taught In
Fall 2015
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Description
Great works of fiction often take us to far-off places; they sometimes conduct us on journeys toward a deeper understanding of what's right next door. We'll read, discuss, and interpret a range of short and short-ish works: The reading list will be chosen from among such texts as "Gilgamesh," Homer's Odyssey (excerpts), Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (excerpts), Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Saleh's Season of Migration to the North, Woolf's To the Lighthouse, John Cheever's "The Swimmer," Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K, Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," Toni Morrison's Jazz, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Beckett's How It Is, Calvino's Invisible Cities, Forster's A Passage to India. As a CI-H class, this subject will involve substantial practice in argumentative writing and oral communication.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. 
- 21L.003-1 Reading Fiction: Dysfunctional Families (Spring 2007)
- 21L.003-2 Reading Fiction (Spring 2007)
- 21L.003-2 Reading Fiction (Fall 2006)
- 21L.003 Introduction to Fiction (Fall 2003)
- 21L.003 Introduction to Fiction (Spring 2002)
Archived versions: 