CWL 1xx

Fall 20xx
Tales of Adventure in the Western Tradition
Meets: _________________ at ________________
Instructor: Daria Semenova
Instructor email: dss2@illinois.edu
Office hours: ___________________
Course description and aims:
This is a 3-hour course for undergrad students. Format: lecture-discussion. Available both
to those with and those without background in literary studies. No formal prerequisites.
The course aims to elucidate main glimpses of the adventure tradition in western
literatures as a witness of coming into being and dismantling of European empires in the
18th early 20th c.
The course proposes two main foci when considering the development of this tradition:
(1) structural aspect of the works in this popular genre, i.e. repeating patterns, character
types and topoi, quite specific reader expectation when approaching reading labeled as
adventure, the contract between a reader and an author;
(2) ideological implications of works in this popular genre, the ways in which an
entertaining reading comes to bolster dominant discourses of empire of a nation-state, or
of anti-imperial struggle; as well as ideologies of gender (prescribed masculinities and
femininities) and race pertinent to the genre and repeating themselves.
The course proposes to concentrate on specific strains, subgeneric forms or ideas and
their development, rather than strictly chronological approach to development of the
genre as a whole.
After completing the course, students are expected not only to be acquainted with the
adventure tradition per se, but also to be able to look into possible ideological
implications of popular culture genres. The course aims to provide the students with
methodological apparatus to do so.
Required readings:
See each week for required readings. No purchases required all the readings available
through library as e-books.
Optional readings:
Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914. Cornell
University Press, 1990.
Bruzelius, Margaret. Romancing the novel: adventure from Scott to Sebald. Bucknell University Press,
2007.

Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. 1976.
Green, Martin Burgess. Seven Types of Adventure Tale: An Etiology of a Major Genre. Philadelphia:
Penn State Press, 1991.
Green, Martin. Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.
Phillips, Richard. Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure. London & New York:
Routledge, 1997.
Rushdie S. On Adventure Imaginary Homelands. Essays and Criticism. 1981-1991. London : Granta
Books & Penguin Books, 1991. 222-225.
Said, Edward W. Culture and imperialism. Vintage Books, 1994.
+ see each week for additional optional readings
Assessment:
20% - active participation in class discussions
15% - midterm exam (take-home; due: Week 7)
20% - final exam (take-home; due one week after the last meeting in class)
15% - presentation on a topic assigned by the instructor
30% - term paper on any comparative topic of the texts on the syllabus, or of the texts in
the syllabus with any additional related readings, or of the text in the syllabus and their
film versions, as agreed with the instructor (due one week after the last meeting in class)
All work by students is supposed to be their own work, as stipulated by the Student Code,
Part 4. Any infraction of the academic integrity requirements will be penalized by grading
the assignment suspected of plagiarism as 0%.
Final grades:
A 90-100%
B 80-89%
C 70-79%
D 65-69%
F 0-65%
Course schedule:
Week 1. Introductory discussion. Defining common background and terms defining the
following discussion. Historical types of adventure. Pre-modern adventure. Realistic
adventure.
Weeks 2-3. Adventure in the wake of the modern world order.
Defoe, Daniel. (1911) Robinson Crusoe. New York, H. Holt and Co., available as e-book
Optional:
Tournier, Michel. (1969) Friday.Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday,

Campe, Joachim Heinrich. (1795) Robinson the younger by Mr. Campe. Illustrated with
Danish notes Copenhagen : printed for P. M. Liunge, available as e-book
Weeks 4. Adventure and the European nation-states.
Dumas, Alexandre. ([19--) The three guardsmen. Chicago : Donohue, Henneberry & Co.,
available as e-book
Optional:
Scott, Walter. (1923) Rob Roy. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, available as e-book
Prez-Reverte, Arturo. Soto, Soni. (1996) The Club Dumas /New York : Harcourt Brace.
Weeks 5-6. Adventure and the frontier.
Reid, Mayne. (1859) Oceola. London : Hurst and Blackett, available as e-book
Optional:
Cooper, James Fenimore. ([1925?) The pioneers. New York : J.H. Sears, available as e-book
May, Karl Friedrich. (1977) Ardistan and Djinnistan :a novel. New York : Seabury Press,
Weeks 7-8. Adventure and the scramble for world power.
Kipling, Rudyard. (1913 [c1901) Kim. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., available
as e-book
Haggard, H. Rider. (1916) King Solomon's mines. New York, Longmans, Green and Co.,
available as e-book
Optional:
Verne, Jules, Lackland, William, Riou, Edouard. Five weeks in a balloon, or, Journeys and
discoveries in Africa by three Englishmen, available as e-book
Week 9. Adventure and modernity.
Verne, Jules. ([190-?) Tour of the world in eighty days. New York, P.F. Collier, available as
e-book
Week 10. Adventure and human in the society.
Dumas, Alexandre. ([n.d.) The Count of Monte Cristo. New York : A.L. Burt Co., available
as e-book
Weeks 11-12. Adventure and the quest for national independence.
Sienkiewicz, Henryk, Drezmal, Max Anthony. (1920) In desert and wilderness. Boston :
Little, Brown, available as e-book
Optional:

Guman, Naum. (1979) Path of the orange peels : adventures in the early days of Tel
Aviv. New York : Dodd, Mead,
Weeks 13-14. New adventure realms.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. (1993) A princess of Mars. Charlottesville, Va. : University of
Virginia Library, available as e-book
Optional:
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1966) The lord of the rings, London, Allen & Unwin,