This originally appeared almost a year ago, so apologies for being so on top of things: The syllabus for a Literary Interpretation class taught by David Foster Wallace. A taste:

Certain approaches might turn out to be a waste of time. There may be abrupt changes in the syllabus. Extra work may be added. Let me say that again: Extra work may be added.

In the book The Top Ten, in which various writers list their favorite books, Wallace included two books by Thomas Harris — Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. These choices, and the rest of his list, caused some to ask the obvious question. Well, Silence of the Lambs is one of the four required full-length texts on his syllabus. So . . .

There are a lot of shorter pieces he assigned as well, which you can see starting on page 4 of the document.

(Via The Rumpus)