FRS 002 — Sec. 018 — (2 unit) — CRN 73062 — W 12:10 – 2:00pm — 25 Wellman
Encountering Islam in the Enlightenment: Traveler’s Tales from the East, 1660-1789

Instructor: David Alvarez, Department of English, College of Letters and Science

Description: This research seminar gives students an opportunity to read some neglected texts that frame our understanding of Islam and to work with rare books and maps in the UC Davis Special Collections Library. In the first part of the course students will read some of the more well-known pieces of oriental travel literature in this period while learning and applying research skills that will allow them to locate their own texts on this topic at UC Davis, portions of which we will choose to read and evaluate in the second part of the course. Learning to read and work with rare maps will be a special research priority.

Format: The primary work of the course will be reading the selected texts very closely and learning how to perform advanced library research (a useful skill for college and the workplace). Students will improve their reading, writing, speaking, and computer skills while investigating a topic of some relevance to contemporary social and political issues. Under the instructor’s guidance, students will work in small groups for class presentations of close readings designed to jumpstart discussion and analysis. Students will also attend a specially-tailored library class that will train them to research Shield’s library and its Special Collections. The results of this seminar may be published as research on the World Wide Web and may also contribute to an anthology on Islam and the Enlightenment. Students may also contribute to a library display on travelers to the Orient in the eighteenth century. Grading: Class participation (33%), development of a bibliography of English travel narratives to the orient (33%), oral and written report on one of the works listed in the bibliography that most interests the student (34%).

Field Trip: Library class on advanced computer searches of rare book libraries and an introduction to the Department of Special Collections, Shields Library.

About the Instructor: After graduating from UC Davis with a double major in Comparative Literature and Philosophy, David Alvarez completed his Ph.D. at Cornell University. He has taught at Cornell, the University of Rochester, and Davidson College, and also held a Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley before returning to UC Davis last year. He specializes in Enlightenment Studies, and his research seminar continues his work on the relationship between literature, religion, and politics from 1660-1720.