What is a Slow Read? A Slow Read is pretty much what the name implies, a course, typically a one-credit seminar, that takes on a single text, what you might think of as a “big book,” that rewards deliberate and measured investigation over a semester or block. IC professors have taught many dozens of such courses over the years, addressing everything from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura to Tony Morrison’s Playing in the Dark. We’ve also had Slow Views of artworks and Slow Listens to musical compositions. Slow Read’s were first developed at Ithaca College and are now offered at many colleges and universities. Hey - we started a movement! Join it! Remember, if it’s worth reading, it’s worth reading slowly!
The three Slow Reads for Spring 2023 are described below. These courses are open to all Ithaca College students. There are no, or very minimal, pre-requisites. Please feel free to contact the instructors for more information about their ‘reads.’ For more information about the Slow Read program, please contact Bob Sullivan (rsulliva@ithaca.edu), Department of Literatures in English.
ENGL 29400 01 (CRN: 40634) 1 Credit. Homer - The Odyssey Wed. 4:00-5:15 Instructor: Bob Sullivan
Odysseus’ return to Ithaca from Troy has become one of the paradigmatic ‘hero’s journeys’ in world literature. It’s also a rattling good tale of love, adventure, yearning, cruelty, and folly. The characters and set-piece stories have become common to even those who have never read the original. The blinding of the Cyclops. The amazing sorceress Circe. The massacre of Penelope’s suitors. The Sirens, the Lotus Eaters, Scylla and Charybdus – all crowd the imagination. The poem’s 12,091 lines of dactylic hexameter have been brilliantly translated by Emily Wilson, the first woman to have published a complete rendition in English. We will read The Odyssey at a rate that is appropriate to the poem’s expanse, working through one or two “books” (much more like chapters) per week over the term. All are welcome to join us on this encounter with the world of the epic.
ENGL 29400 02 (CRN: 40635) 1 Credit. Laurence Sterne - Tristam Shandy Tues. 4:00-5:15 Instructor: David Kramer
Tristram Shandy, written between 1759 and 1767, startled, delighted, perplexed, and appalled its original audience; it has proved one of the most influential novels ever written. Most English majors have heard of it. But what is it? What makes it so addictive, pleasurable, perplexing? Joyce, Woolf, Fuentes, Kundera, Rushdie, Grass, and many other modernist and post-modernist writers have responded to its methods and themes; to read Tristram Shandy is to approach post-modernity from its pre-modern side. As the course title suggests, we’ll read it slowly—the only worthwhile way. There will be perplexity (I’ll help you with that), bawdry (you’re mostly on your own), delight (we’ll all share).
WRTG 20700 01 (CRN: 41430) 1 Credit. Zadie Smith - Intimations Mon. & Wed 4:00-5:15 Instructor: Amy Quan
During the first year of the Covid epidemic Zadie Smith wrote a series of essays that straddle both the personal/public line and the prose/poetry genre border. Her work in this collection makes a strong case that rigorous intellectual work can be extremely creative, urgent, and engaging. You’ll also find this course listed on HOMER Connect and the WRTG website as WRTG 20700 Slow Read: Topics in Power and Resistance.