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Reading Ulysses all around the town

ulysses_readingYou can’t be sure what senior English majors would do when given the choice between writing a paper or reading James Joyce’s 265,000-word novel Ulysses at the end of one the last classes of their academic career. English majors presumably love reading, but they are also the people who say they’d rather write a paper than take a test.

And while they weren’t really given a choice—their professor assigned the reading as their final major project—the students in Bob Cowgill’s senior keystone course took on a bit of a challenge in reading Ulysses. They’re doing it aloud, in a marathon reading over the course of three weeks, and in several locations around the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Continue reading “Reading Ulysses all around the town”

WWII through film and literature

WWII_trip Last month, history professor Jacqui deVries and English/film professor Bob Cowgill led a group of 20 Augsburg students through Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Using literature, film, architecture, and eyewitness accounts, students explored the aftermath of World War II to understand how people made sense of their suffering and now pay homage to the past.

The idea for the trip began when deVries joined a Lilly grant-sponsored trip in Europe to study Martin Luther and the Reformation. There she met tour director Andreas Brecht, and the two discovered a common interest in post-World War II history. Continue reading “WWII through film and literature”