One of the fundamental questions literature asks is this: “What does it mean to be human?” This is the driving question for Literary Studies 11. Questions that accompany this question include, “What is the human condition?” “What reasons are there for hope in humanity?” and “How do we wrestle with the realities of human evil in our pursuit of a better world?”

The vision for this course is to ask these questions through literature. Classics and canonical texts are used, as well literature from a variety of different voices, including women, minorities, and Indigenous Peoples. Each of the texts that was chosen wrestles with the realities of the human condition in some way. The hope is that students will have an opportunity to consider important questions about their own nature through the examination of this literature, with the goal of moving students toward a hopeful vision of humanity’s future.