The fall semester just flew by – while reading! Us humanists tend to get a long list of literature to read for our many courses, especially if we are at inclined to study something literary. This semester our selection included books from different parts of the world and from many cultures.
The students in the Folk religion course (Kansanusko) got to choose two books (out of a big pile), which they would read for the course exam. These included Leena Siikala’s Suomalainen samanismi (“Finnish shamanism”) and Juha Pentikäinen’s Suomalaisen lähtö – Kirjoituksia pohjoisesta kuolemankulttuurista (“A Finn’s Death – Writings from Northern Death Culture”). Many of the books in the selection dealt with shamanism and death, which is fascinating although sometimes difficult to grasp from a modern point of view.
Louise Erdrich’s Tracks is a classic chosen for the Native American Writing course by Mark Shackleton. The magic realism draws the reader in fairly quickly and it is an enjoyable read for school.A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory on the other hand is quite a dry, theoretical work, which might induce a deep sleep even in the most vigilant reader.
Erdrich’s novel wasn’t the only one to be read for Native American Writing: Momaday’s House Made of Dawn and King’s Green Grass, Running Water also made the cut. Both interesting, although complex (as I’m sure anyone from that course could testify), they provide a special insight to the Native American cultures and teach the mythology of which most of us have no previous knowledge.
More literary theory: Twentieth Century Literary Theory is meant for Approaches to Literature course and requires some understanding of the history of literature. It is dry, although informative, as these sort of general guides tend to be.Silko’s Ceremony is fairly exciting and is the final book belonging to the Native American Writing reading list.
The Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a classic in the field of English philology and, naturally, we still use it from course to course. This time the course was about the evaluation in language, which relies somewhat on grammar and, hence, required some brushing up of grammar terms.