4.

Landscape Reading
Assignment:
Read, discuss and review one text in depth which will prepare you for understanding a new place. The text may be fiction or non-fiction, assigned by your
advisor or selected individually.
The purpose of this assignment is to engage the place and culture with some
depth of knowledge. The amount of information for a place or a country at times
can be overwhelming. It is difficult to fully synthesize all this information in
the very brief period you have before going Off-Campus. Fortunately there are
texts written by people who have spent significant time and energy trying to
understand these places.
Procedure:
1. Select a text. Individual texts or a set of texts may be required by your
advisor. The main criteria is that the work be in depth. Standard guidebooks present too many subjects, landmarks, histories in a very cursory
way. The intent is to find something that has a sustained focus, probes
and integrates. Works written by people from the place are invaluable.
Sometimes the relevance may seem oblique, such as reading Kafka if you
are going to be studying in Prague. But even Kafkaesque absurdities tell
something of the imaginative life of early modern Czechoslovakia and his
personal identity, and the languages he wrote in tell of the ethnic and
political history of the place and time.
2. Read.
3. Identify a particular theme to focus on.
4. Discuss the text with the group.
5. Write a brief annotation and thematic interpretation.
Format:
Class discussionAnnotation: two paragraphs which describe the contents, approach and
tone of the book. Identify key ideas and issues addressed. Include an excerpt that typifies the ideas and tone of the text. Thematic Interpretation:
3 to 4 pages, concise essay.
Criteria:
Participation in discussion
Clarity of annotation and thematic interpretation
Off-Campus:
List three other texts to read in preparation or during your Off-Campus
semester.
Identify sites to visit during the Off-Campus semester.