Old Syllabi

Syllabus: Fall 2012

Friday, August 31

First day: introductions and course outline, reading Wordsworth's "Solitary Reaper"

• T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917, anthology 2287) and companion readings

• Anthology introduction: "The Twentieth Century" (anthology 1918-48)
• Robert Harrison of Stanford (and the podcast Entitled Opinions) on Prufrock and Dante
• Contemporary Literary Criticism Select (subscription only): Eliot
• Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Eliot as poet

Linking passages: group 1

Note: here and throughout this syllabus, the first (less indented) list of readings is required, while the second (more indented) list of readings is supplemental and optional. Here, for example, Eliot's poem, the companion readings, and the introduction to the twentieth century are required, whereas the other links are optional.

• Eliot, The Waste Land (1922, anthology 2297)
  • Eliot reading the poem

  • "The Wasteland and Modernity," an episode of the excellent BBC podcast In Our Time

  • LOLcat Waste Land

Linking passages: group 2

• Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919, anthology 2326)

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 1 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #1.

Remember that your responses can be about the week's reading as a whole, not only the shorter readings I provide for Friday.

• Virginia Woolf, first part of Mrs. Dalloway (1925, anthology 2338-2379)

  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Woolf as novelist and essayist

  • This collaborative site on Mrs. Dalloway has a lot of material that can help orient you in the novel.

  • In Our Time on Literary Modernism

Linking passages: group 3

• Woolf, second part of Mrs. Dalloway (1925, anthology 2380-2437)

Linking passages: group 4

• Selections from the MLA's Approaches to Teaching Mrs. Dalloway

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 4 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #1.

Remember that your responses can be about the week's reading as a whole, not only the shorter readings I provide for Friday.

• Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929), the book (not the anthology excerpts)

Linking passages: group 5

• John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World (1907)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Synge as dramatist

Linking passages: group 6

• Woolf, "The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection" (anthology 2334)

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 2 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #2.

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS
FOR STUDENTS WRITING PAPERS

• James Joyce, "Araby," "Eveline," and "Clay," from Dubliners (1914, anthology 2218, 2222, and 2225)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Joyce as novelist and short-fiction writer

  • The Modern World, which produces excellent author pages, has an extensive one devoted to Joyce.

  • IQ infinity: the unknown James Joyce is a huge complex of useful pages by Jorn Barger.

  • Edward J. Maloney and David F. Fanning of Ohio State maintain the James Joyce Resource Center, with a bibliography of books, a timeline, and "casebooks" of references to Joyce scholarship grouped by critical approach.

  • Yet another very good site: The James Joyce Portal

Linking passages: group 1

• Joyce, "The Dead" (anthology 2229), from Dubliners

Linking passages: group 2

• Margot Norris, "Not the Girl She Was at All: Women in 'The Dead'"
• Derek Attridge, "Touching 'Clay': Reference and Reality in Dubliners

FIRST EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at the usual class time

or

submit your paper under my office door by 3:00 p.m.

Linking passages: group 3

• Joyce, Ulysses (1922), episodes 1 ("Telemachus") and 4 ("Calypso")
  • My Ashplant resources: Episode 1
  • My Ashplant resources: Episode 4

Linking passages: group 4

• Vincent J. Cheng, "Authenticity and Identity: Catching the Irish Spirit"
• Speeches on Irish independence (anthology 2165-2173)

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 5 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #2.

• Joyce, Ulysses, episode 12 ("Cyclops")
  • My Ashplant resources: Episode 12

Linking passages: group 5

• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1899)

• Encyclopedia Britannica on Tristan Tzara

• Tzara, "Dadaism"
  • Wilde's famous trials have inspired two excellent sites. The Bobst Library at NYU has built a spectacular web version of their exhibition commemorating the centennial of the trials: Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces. Though less polished and flashy, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School's site on the trials also contains a wealth of interesting information.

  • The National Gallery of Art's online exhibition of Dada

  • Tzara, "L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer" (sound recording, item #2 on the linked page)

Linking passages: group 6

• Benedict Anderson, from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
• Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, "Why I Choose to Write in Irish, The Corpse That Sits Up and Talks Back" (anthology 2797)

• Tom Stoppard, Travesties (1974)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Stoppard

  • British Writers (subscription only): Stoppard

Linking passages: group 1

• Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952)
  • Compare! The Marx Brothers, from Duck Soup (1933) and The Lucky speech on film
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography: Beckett as playwright and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Beckett (subscription only)
  • Apmonia: a site for Samuel Beckett by The Modern World, has an impressive array of top-notch information available from its long front page, including a biography, articles, reviews, notes on productions, and an image gallery.

  • The University of California at Santa Barbara hosts The Samuel Beckett Endpage, a strong site although probably second to Apmonia.

  • J. M. Coetzee in The New York Review of Books on "The Making of Samuel Beckett"
  • A Beckett discovery

Linking passages: group 2

No class today: we will have midsemester conferences.

• Beckett, Endgame (1958)

• William Shakespeare, Caliban-related sections from The Tempest (1611)

Linking passages: group 3

• Martin McDonagh, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996)
  • British Writers: McDonagh and Contemporary Authors Online: McDonagh (subscription only)

Linking passages: group 4

• Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape (1958)
• Samuel Beckett grading scale

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 6 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #3.

• Film: The Crying Game (dir. Neil Jordan, 1992)

Linking passages: group 5

• All anthology readings from Eavan Boland (anthology 2777)
• Kristin Handler, " Sexing the Crying Game: Difference, Identity, Ethics" (use the "View PDF" link)
• Dictionary of Literary Biography: Boland as poet and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Boland (subscription only)

Linking Passages: group 6

SECOND EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at the usual class time

or

submit your paper under my office door by 3:00 p.m.

• Geoge Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1913)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Shaw as playwright

Linking passages: group 1

• Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000), 1-102
• Dictionary of Literary Biography: Smith and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Smith (subscription only)
• In Our Time on The British Empire's Legacy

Linking passages: group 2

• Smith, "Speaking in Tongues," either as audio (strongly recommended) or as text

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 1 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #4.

• Smith, White Teeth, 103-217
• Salman Rushdie on the BBC podcast Start the Week discussing being forced to live under police protection after being 'sentenced to death' by the Ayatollah Khomeini

Linking passages: group 3

NO CLASS TODAY: keep trucking with the reading for next week.

Linking passages: group 4

• Smith, White Teeth, 218-340
• From The New York Times, September 2012: Seeking Cures, Patients Enlist Mice Stand-Ins

• This blog post from The Economist includes Alex Tabarrok's summary of the OncoMouse patent debate

Linking passages: group 5

• Smith, White Teeth, 341-448
• Paul Root Wolpe, It's time to question bio-engineering (TED Talk video)
• Anna Laetitia Aikin (Barbauld), " The Mouse's Petition, To Dr. Priestley" (1773)

• John Clement Ball, from Imagining London
• James Procter, "New Ethnicities, the Novel, and the Burdens of Representation"

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS
FOR STUDENTS WRITING PAPERS

• Film: Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)

Linking passages: group 1

• Film: The Remains of the Day (dir. James Ivory, 1993)

Linking passages: group 2

• Tania Modleski, "Never To Be Thirty-Six Years Old: Rebecca as Female Oedipal Drama"

• Film: My Beautiful Laundrette (written by Hanif Kureishi, dir. Stephen Frears, 1985)
• British Writers (subscription only): Kureishi

• Contemporary Literary Criticism (subscription only): Kureishi

Linking passages: group 3

• Film: Dirty Pretty Things (dir. Stephen Frears, 2002)

No linking passages today--we will take some time to discuss how the class has gone.

Last day: We will wrap up and weep for the lack of further class sessions.

FINAL EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at 9:00 a.m.

or

submit your paper under my office door by noon