Gilgamesh is probably over 3,500 years old.  Why are we still reading it today?  Does this story still interest and relate to us somehow?  Why or why not?  How?

Why read old, old literature?  Do we read it purely out of historical interest?  Just out of romantic curiosity about long ago?  Because it somehow "speaks to" us?  So that we'll be able to identify Enkidu on a cultural literacy quiz?  To see a totally foreign perspective on the world in order to increase our sensitivity to diversity?  Why?

As you think about these questions, think about what issues and themes Gilgamesh highlights.  We could talk about a lot of different things in class that are relevant to this poem.  We could talk about heroism and what it is; we could talk about what civilizes savagery; we could talk about mortality and immortality; we could talk about leadership and what makes a good leader; we could talk about curiosity; we could talk about the fascinating strangeness of the Akkadian polytheistic view of the universe as opposed to our monotheistic/atheistic view today.

I think that Gilgamesh is a really good introduction to this course.  Obviously, if we're going to be reading a bunch of texts that are over 200 years old (half of them, over 2,000 years old), we need to have some idea about why we're doing it.  Because Gilgamesh is so very old and foreign to us, it offers a nice opportunity to pause and ask why reading such old and strange literature is worthwhile.

In other words, what are we doing in this class?