This literature course will examine James Joyce’s collection of fifteen short stories called simply Dubliners. This volume was first published in 1914, but not without a struggle. Joyce first submitted these stories to a publisher in 1905, and had it rejected 17 times before it was finally published in 1914. It has become one of the classics of English language literature, despite its rocky beginnings.
Dubliners depicts middle class Irish life in the early part of the 20th century. The first stories are narrated by protagonists who are children. As the stories continue, they examine the lives of characters in increasingly older stages of life. Interestingly, many of the characters who appear in these short stories appear later in minor roles in Joyce’s famous novel Ulysses.
Participants in this course will read, discuss, and write about the text and its influence. As in most book clubs, the focus will be on lively discussion. Course materials will include background information for understanding the text, as well as vocabulary and language support. Assessment will include quizzes and short writing assignments.
This is the fifth part of the BerkeleyX Book Club offerings.
"Dubliners" by Joyce: BerkeleyX Book Club
University of California, Berkeley via edX
This course may be unavailable.
Overview
Taught by
Maggie Sokolik
Tags
Reviews
4.2 rating, based on 9 Class Central reviews
-
The course is delivered as a book club with some assessment. The information given is appropriate so far. There is a great discussion between readers. So far a most enjoyable way of 'walking' with Joyce.
It is quite joyceful but dark in paralysis and incomplete parallelograms.
Looking forward to the next instalments over the next three weeks.
Cheers, MrJ (Not Joyce but Johansen) -
This was my first "online book club", and I was unprepared for how different this was from the conventional MOOC's I've been taking. There was much less direction and a much greater emphasis on discussing things with other students. Unfortunately, I find the edX.org platform less conducive for genuine discussion than other platforms such as those of Coursera or FutureLearn. Instead of discussion, we tended to get monologues to which people would occasionally chime in with "Yes, I agree".
That I didn't much care for The Dubliners didn't help either. (I'm trying the book club again now with Dracula, and I'm enjoying that much more.) -
This Joyce's shorts tales, Dubliness, have a special characteristic, many of the situations only are insinuated for the author, 50% of the tales ocurr in the imagination of the reader, with this mental exercise, the story turns very attractive, also, Joyce is very bold, but delicate. Edx and or Professor Mrs Maggie Sokolik, analize the context, and this show us, much more, for example, The Dublin in the epoque when this story was writes, the charactyeristics of the society, a geografical location, and its relaciontship with Great Britain, whit this information, we could understand better the enviroment where was write.
-
-
-
