Kim Echlin on Morality, Mythology, and the Double Life of Totalitarianism
January 15, 2021
My assignment was to offer a survey course on the history of English literature in northeast China. I was paired with a young American teacher sponsored by the United Nations who was to teach phonetics and oral expression. We taught six days a week, and every Wednesday afternoon our students attended a class in political studies that we were not allowed to observe.
My teaching style was Western, based on reading, reflection, and discussion—no rote learning. I intended to teach what we called in those days a “Beowulf to Woolf” survey course. I brought with me a class set of Edith Hamilton’s