Syllabus

This is the syllabus of English 226 for Fall (2) 2020.

First day: introductions and course outline

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917, Pweb documents section)

• Michael H. Whitworth, Introduction to Modernism (Pweb documents section)
• Poetry Foundation Biography of Eliot
• In Our Time podcast on Literary Modernism

Friday writing: Annotation assignment #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, Whitworth's essay and Eliot's poem are required, whereas the other links are optional.

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• James Joyce, "Araby," "Eveline," and "Clay," from Dubliners (1914)
  • Poetry Foundation bio of Joyce

Put the following in your classwork document:

1. A statement of interest: based on the readings for this class so far and your previous academic work, write down a topic that you'd like to follow through the term as a way to guide your reading. Examples of possible topics include literary experimentation, sexualities, religion, animal imagery, literary form, narrative technique, race and ethnicity, money and work, and so on. You are welcome to choose any of these or create your own. Just be sure that you select something you will be excited to look for throughout the term.
2. Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Poetry Foundation bio of Tzara

• Tzara, "Dadaism"

• Tzara, "To Make a Dadaist Poem"
  • 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)

A light assignment for election day, in addition to the Tzara/Dada readings: introduce yourself to your group. Go to your group's channel in Teams. When you have selected the channel, you will see a tab at the top that says "Posts," which is the location for conversations and chats. Hit the "New Conversation" button at the bottom and type a paragraph of self-introduction to the group.

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Joyce, "The Dead," from Dubliners

Seminar day, version B, from the Weekly Routine

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

Thursday reflection, from the Weekly Routine

Friday writing: Source analysis assignment

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Joyce, Ulysses (1922), episodes 1 ("Telemachus") and 4 ("Calypso") (PWeb Documents)
  • Ashplant resources from the Grinnell Ulysses Collective: Episode 1
  • Ashplant resources from the Grinnell Ulysses Collective: Episode 4

Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Joyce, Ulysses, episode 12 ("Cyclops") (PWeb Documents)
  • Ashplant resources from the Grinnell Ulysses Collective: Episode 12

Seminar day, version A, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World (1907)
  • Poetry Foundation bio of Synge

Seminar day, version B, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1913)
  • Nobel Prize bio of Shaw

Thursday reflection, from the Weekly Routine

Friday writing: Close reading exercise

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube--the first video on Mrs. Dalloway)
• Woolf, first part of Mrs. Dalloway (1925), ending at the section break where the next section begins, "It was awful, he cried, awful, awful!" (could be page 64, dependng on your edition)

  • Modernism Lab bio of Woolf
  • In Our Time podcast on Mrs. Dalloway

Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube--the second video on Mrs. Dalloway)
• Woolf, second part of Mrs. Dalloway, ending with "She must telephone now at once," where the next paragraph begins "Volubly, troublously, the late clock sounded" (could be page 128, depending on your edition)

Seminar day, version A, from the Weekly Routine

• Woolf, third part of Mrs. Dalloway

Seminar day, version B, from the Weekly Routine

• Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)

Thursday reflection, from the Weekly Routine

Friday writing: Annotation assignment #2

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (1914, Pweb Documents)
  • Stein's Life and Career

  • Stein on PennSound

  • Stein at The University of Pennsylvania's Electronic Poetry Center
  • The BBC's Great Lives Podcast on Stein (also downloadable through iTunes)

Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Harryette Mullen, "Trimmings" and "S*PeRM**K*T" from Recyclopedia (1991, book or PWeb Documents)
• Harryette Mullen: The Poetry Foundation and The American Academy of Poets

Seminar day, version A, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1899)
• The University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School's site on Wilde's trials contains a wealth of interesting information.

Seminar day, version B, from the Weekly Routine

THANKSGIVING: NO CLASS MEETING

Friday writing: Creative project for Monday reading due Monday at 3:00 p.m. Iowa time

In class today, you will share a brief (1-2 minute) reading of part of your creative reflection. You can do your reading live as part of the class session, or you can prepare a 1-2 minute audio or video presentation. If you want to prepare a file to play during the session, send it to me by 5:00 p.m. Iowa time on the day of class.

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Tom Stoppard, Travesties (1974)
  • Britannica on Stoppard

Note that this is not the usual Tuesday assignment: Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952)
  • Poetry Foundation bio of Beckett
  • The University of Antwerp hosts The Samuel Beckett Endpage

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

Note that this is not the usual Wednesday assignment: Seminar day, version A, from the Weekly Routine

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Beckett, Endgame (1958)
  • Professor Simpson's "Endgame: A Hit Song in One Act" (Taylor Swift, feat. Ed Sheeran, Future, and Samuel Beckett)
  • RadioLab segment on acting Endgame
  • Lego Endgame

Thursday reflection, from the Weekly Routine

Friday writing: Bibliography exercise

• Introductory video from Professor Simpson (YouTube)
• Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000), 1-102
• Britannica on Smith
• In Our Time on The British Empire's Legacy

Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

• 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

Seminar day, version A, from the Weekly Routine

• 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

Seminar day, version B, from the Weekly Routine

• 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)

Thursday reflection, from the Weekly Routine

Friday writing: Paper prospectus

• Smith, "Speaking in Tongues," an audio lecture

Quotations of interest, from the Weekly Routine

For today's class, I have put readings from two anthologies of contemporary British poetry in the Documents section of our PioneerWeb site. Spend about 90-120 minutes looking through these readings--checking out how they are organized, browsing them, selecting a handful to read more carefully. Before class, clip images of your two poems and upload them to the Files section of your group's channel on Teams. Think about how your two selected poems relate to works or issues that we have discussed so far this semester. You will discuss the poems in small groups during class.

For each of the two poems you chose for yesterday's class, post the following in your classwork document:

1. your image of the poem itself,
2. the information about the author provided by the anthology, and
3. your own paragraph introducing the work's connection to readings we have done earlier in the semester.

In class, your task (in small groups) will be to write some notes about how you might organize the class's selected poems into sections and introduce them for a micro-anthology of contemporary British poetry.

Last class meeting! We will use our class time to wrap up the term and look ahead to the final papers.

FINAL PAPERS DUE BY EMAIL AT 7:00 p.m.; I cannot accept any work submitted after midnight!