Week 2 Reading Overview

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4.

Week 3: Saints and Animals

Week 4: Jewish Fairytales

Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6.

Week 5: Georgian Folktales

Week 6: Raja Rasalu

Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.]

Week 7: Japanese Fairytales (Ozaki)

Week 9: Tibetan Folktales

Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11.

Week 10: California/Southwest

Week 11: Inuit

Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13.

Week 12: King Arthur

Week 13: Celtic Fairytales

Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15.

Week 14: Russian Folktales

Week 15: Czech Folktales

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I'm really amazed by the amount of freedom we are being given to choose the stories we read this semester. I am also extremely impressed by the vastness of the UnTextbook database for us to choose those stories from: I can't imagine how much work must've went into putting it together! As for the readings themselves, it wasn't hard to find topics that interested me, but it was extremely difficult to choose just 2 units from each content area, there's so much! One unit I am especially looking forward to is the Southwest Folktales as I have a small bit of experience in the area, courtesy of a research trip with the Anthropology department's Dr Duwe. Another unit I can't wait to get started on is the one I will be looking at next week: Saints and Animals. Being Greek Orthodox myself, I grew up with the lives of the saints as bedtime stories, and being a kid, I particularly enjoyed the ones with animals such as Saint Seraphim of Sarov and his bear friends as pictured below. I can't wait to take another look at stories like these through a more academic lens.

Saint Seraphim feeding a bear outside his hermitage, 1903 lithograph. Source: WikiMedia Commons