Throughout this course, students will explore, interpret, and examine the spellbinding origins of literary narrative through a multi-genre array of ancient texts that have shaped our collective past and continue to inspire our present. From the sea-soaked epics of the Fertile Crescent and the sacred surahs of the Qur’an to the veneration of claw-footed goddesses and shape-shifting lycanthropes, students will investigate the possibilities, shortcomings, and complexities of canonical texts in addition to mapping the many afterlives each text has conjured. Using this lens for analysis and dialogue, students will also be encouraged to cultivate generative works of their own making inspired by the traditions, forms, subtexts, and aesthetics embodied by the course readings.