WORLD LITERATURE This survey course includes poetry, myths, legends, plays, and novels representing various world cultures. The reading assignments range from ancient Mesopotamian epics, to Islamic-Sufi poetry, to Japanese and Chinese poetry, to Hindu Vedas, to Native American mythology, to English novels. Students write weekly analytic essays or compose self selected creative pieces such as plays, poetry, and short stories. Course content is enriched with high quality video resources portraying historical, biographical, cultural, and literary elements. To provide a framework for grasping literary themes, a strong dose of relevant historical information is added to augment the literary units. The course culminates with student presentations and essays based on critical analyses of poetry.  Phil Jones, who has lived, taught and traveled in many parts of Asia and the Far East, enriches the course with his extensive collection of art objects, slides, and personal narratives.