| Course ID: | CMLT 4190/6190. 3 hours. Repeatable for maximum 6 hours credit. |
| Course Title: | Buddhism and Western Literature |
Course
Description: | The relationship between Buddhism and Western literature. Students
will study representative writers who engaged with Eastern
spirituality. Topics examined in this course include Europe’s
search for Shangri-La, religious encounter narratives, literary
modernism and modernist Buddhism, the Beat Generation, and
Buddhist Orientalism and Occidentalism. |
| Oasis Title: | Buddhism and Western Lit |
Semester Course
Offered: | Offered fall semester every year. |
| Grading System: | A-F (Traditional) |
|
| Course Objectives: | The objective of this course is to introduce students to the
interactional history of Buddhism and Western culture through
literary works. Students will broaden their knowledge of Buddhism,
East-West exchange of ideas, and Western literary reactions to
Eastern spirituality. They will also develop critical thinking
skills and cross-cultural and inter-religious communication skills. |
| Topical Outline: | W 1: Introduction: Europe’s Historical Encounter with Buddhism
W 2: Theravada Sutras: Excerpts from Long and Medium-Length
Discourses and Dhammapada
W 3: Mahayana Sutras: Heart Sutra; Diamond Sutra; Vimalakirti
Sutra
W 4: Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia
W 5: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
W 6: Rudyard Kipling, Kim
W 7: James Hilton, Lost Horizon
W 8: Review and Midterm
W 9: William Butler Yeats and Fernando Pessoa, Selected Poems
and Essays
W 10: Samuel Beckett, Act Without Words; How It Is; and Murphy
W 11: Olive Schreiner, “The Buddhist Priest’s Wife” and Undine
W 10: J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye; Jack Kerouac,
The Dharma Bums
W 11: Gary Snyder, Turtle Island; Alan Ginsberg, Selected
Poems
W 12: Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Short Stories and Essays
W 13: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
W 14: Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale
W 15: Conclusion: The Shift From Textual to Experiential
Buddhism and its Reflection in Literature |
| Honor Code Reference: | UGA Student Honor Code: "I will be academically honest in all of
my academic work and will not tolerate academic dishonesty of
others." A Culture of Honesty, the University's policy and
procedures for handling cases of suspected dishonesty, can be
found at www.uga.edu/ovpi. Every course syllabus should include
the instructor's expectations related to academic integrity. |