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The parts of this proposal that appeal the most to me are weeks 5 & 6. Religious writings are an interesting are to examine non-fiction and fiction through, and I think there is also a way that we could discuss things like the construction of genre and form, literature and reality through a reading of some religious theory.Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite books and its an excellent read that plays with non-fictional/fictional forms. Allegory is trick, C.S. Lewis has another allegory/philosophy called "The Great Divorce" but I don't know that it has the connections to modernity this proposal envisions?

I find religious extremism and 9/11 to be an almost absurdly hard topic to navigate. A German Professor I've met with a few times has complained multiple times about how modern German Literature is always caught confronting fascism but that it never moves beyond that to anything transformative. I question our ability to find something transformative (merely because the time would constraint discussion and reading) in one week and I think the frustration with the topic would be extreme. We would also be coming in with such varied backrounds and experiences. This could all make the conversation more interesting and more necessary to the subject but I did want to get that thought out there just in case anyone else had similar feelings. 

The main drawback I see to this course is that we would be constantly reaching for connections and I feel we've done enough of that so far. The format of the texts confronting one another is very interesting but the movement within the groups is almost not connected enough?

Open to have my mind changed though!

Aya