Date

Address

Dear

On behalf of the faculty, let me extend sincere congratulations to you on joining Queens University of Charlotte’s Class of 2010! We are busy preparing for your arrival in August, and we hope that you are excited about beginning your college career.

Your next four years will be marked by an exchange of ideas and perspectives that is both continuous and creative. Your first opportunity for this will be “Core 110—The Ancients,” a course inspired by three questions that, together, provide an important foundation for any liberal arts education: What is a good person? What is a good life? What is a good society? We’ll approach these questions from the perspectives of ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Christian cultures. Your Core 110 professor, whom you will meet during orientation, will also be your faculty advisor.

But, Core 110 is not only about ancient peoples. It’s about all of us living today: our cultures, our values, and our aspirations. As you form and share your views, you’ll develop the traditional liberal arts of incisive reading and persuasive writing. To begin practicing these, the Core 110 Faculty Team is asking that you read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. The book takes place during China’s Cultural Revolution, when personal aspirations were replaced by state expectations and great literary works were banned in favor of Mao’s Little Red Book. Sijie tells a simple but provocative story of how youths in one rural village find escape in the ideas and inspirations of great books.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress can be found in your local bookstore or from online book retailers. As you read the book, please complete the assignment described on the next page of this letter. Be prepared to hand in your typed essay when we meet on Friday, August 18. It will contribute to your course grade for Core 110. Let me also suggest that you check periodically the Queens website (www.queens.edu) for links to suggestions on reading Balzac, helpful web sites, and updates on Core 110.

Have a wonderful summer. We look forward to seeing you in the fall!

Sincerely,

Deborah Campbell, Asst. Prof. of English

Core 110 Faculty Team Leader

p.s. If you have any questions, please do contact me at campbeld@queens.edu

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Summer 2006 Reading Assignment

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie, Anchor Books, 2002.

ISBN 0-385-72220-6

As your first Queens assignment, you are to read and analyze the book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. Sijie’s novel describes people in their late teens who persevere in adversity and who learn about love, friendship, and the magic of story telling while living in dire circumstances away from home. The setting is China in the 1970s during Chairman Mao’s "cultural revolution" when universities were closed; people from the educated classes, considered enemies of the revolution, were sent into the country to be "re-educated." Books, especially those by western writers, were considered politically dangerous and were banned. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress tells the story of two "frail, skinny, exhausted and risible city youths" (p. 4) who are sent to an isolated mountain village to be re-educated. There they discover the lovely daughter of a local tailor and a cache of forbidden books that changes all their lives in ways they could not imagine. It is a tale of youth’s awakening to love, to intellect, and to the imagination.

As you read:

Look up words you don’t recognize (such as "risible" above), find out something about Honore Balzac, and read about the books the boys read in the novel. You can find summaries of Balzac’s books on the Queens web site: http://www.queens.edu. This will enrich your experience of the novel and provide depth and context for your written analysis.

Make note of specific details in the novel (descriptions, events, the behavior of the characters) that contribute to the development of major themes such as the power of story telling, the contrasts between the boys’ former urban life and the hardships of village life, the need for escape and the thirst for knowledge provided by books, the courage to pursue one’s ambitions, the identity and role of the individual within the community.

Underline key passages that you might need to quote later on in your paper

After you read:

Write a 2-3 page paper (typed, double-spaced) in which you answer the following question: In what way does ONE of the main characters (either the Narrator, Luo, or the Seamstress) change as he or she is "educated" in the novel? Consider what they learn and how they learn it, with particular attention to how books influence their thinking and their actions. Cite specific details from the novel to support your observations. When quoting, cite the page number in parentheses.

Your paper is due on Friday, August 18 when you meet with your Core section and professor.