the cyborg is already here...

Yet one more instance of the Neuromancer world coming into being around us. Check out this link to see Mayo Clinic studies that are enabling people to write on computers using only their brains.

Turkey Time

There is an INFAMOUS bit of literature involving a turkey from the American pilgrim era. Check out the story of one Thomas Granger in William Bradford's famous History of Plymouth Plantation.

Here's the text via Google Books.

Committing to Gibson's literature...

Did this Neuromancer fan take it too far? Geek chic or just geek?

A Live Neurmancer performance this weekend in NY

If you're going to be in New York next weekend, there is a 6-hour performance at the New Museum called "Case" based on Neuromancer.

Here's the link.

This automated hand...

The following link to a productized version of John Keats's "This Living Hand" was sent in by Claire.

Homework for November 17th

1. Your Essay #2 abstract is due in class. Please bring this with you to class. You may write it on the sheet I provided in class, or you may type up your proposal and print it on a separate hard copy.

2. Please read the first 708 lines of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. You should use the online text links provided here on the course blog.

Last Fiction Reading Assignment

Please read the online short story by Charles Cumming called "The 21 Steps". And try to do so with the best Internet connection to which you've got access so the maps can load quickly.
We'll discuss the story next Wednesday evening 7-8pm, room to be announced, and this is a NON-required class. We'll discuss it a bit that Thursday as well in our regular class.

Here's the link.

The coffin hotels of Neuromancer becoming real in Japan?

These seem like a higher-end version of the coffin hotels in Neuromancer.

For Thursday, Nov. 12th

Thursday we finish discussing Neuromancer, so please finish reading it.

In addition to reading it, I'd like you to do a blog writing of 250-350 words. Now that you've finished the novel, I'd like you to write about what plot developments, and other questions/issues get concluded and wrapped up by the end of the novel and which ones remain open? Even further into this, does the conclusion open up some new issues/ideas/questions?

You don't need to formulate a thesis or position on the conclusion, but you are certainly invited to if you wish.

Since we're reading about Ninjas...

Baking our Noodles, on The Matrix

For those who watched the film last night, and for those who've seen it, here's a question for you and an article:

The question: The film seems to leave unspoken the REASON everyone would/should want out of the Matrix construct and those pink goo pods. That seems to me like THE single most important idea driving everyone's actions in the film and yet the film does not say why being out of the Matrix is SO crucial. Can you extrapolate the reason from other clues in the film? Why would the film not say this explicitly? Is the silence on this matter a strength or a weakness of the film and why???

Feel free to comment on this post--totally voluntarily. It's not an assignment, but I'd love to hear your input.


Here's a link to an article by someone at the Foresight Institute who encourages us to welcome an AI takeover of the economy. Does the history of science fictional texts shape our capacities to embrace this kind of idea?

Assignment for Thursday and Movie details

For Thursday, you just need to read in Neuromancer, pp. 119-158, as our syllabus says.

For those of you working with other editions, this means finishing Part 3 and reading the first chapter in Part 4:The Straylight Run, which I believe is chapter 13.

No blog writing--take a break!

Reminder: The first extra credit film opportunity is THIS Thursday: November 5th, from 3:05pm till a bit after 5pm. I have not yet heard back about the room, but will notify you as soon as I know. The other film opportunity will be NEXT Tuesday, November 10th, from 6:05pm till 8 or a bit before. Also the room is to be announced.

Essay #2 Assignment

FINAL ESSAY: Analyzing/Researching William Gibson’s Neuromancer
English 3, Fall 2009

Length: Approximately 2000 words (6-8 pages double-spaced, 1” margins, 12 pt TNR font)
Abstract due: November 17th
Draft Workshop: November 24th (Minimum 3 full pages)
Final Project due: December 3rd in class


When William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer was published in 1984, many readers, critics, and scholars hailed it as the coming of something new in the world of literature. Some claimed that it was a new form of science fiction different from anything previous—a genre that came to be labeled “cyberpunk.” Others claimed that it was a new style of writing (narration, point of view, description and imagery, etc.) that was different not only from its science fiction predecessors, but from all literary predecessors. And still others have credited the novel with articulating a vision of cyberspace that influenced the creation and development of the Internet (recall that Gibson is the person who coined the word “cyberspace”).

Now we are reading this novel 25 years after its first publication. As such, we get to consider the novel from a more critical distance than the critics, fans, and scholars who seemed to fall in love with the novel at first sight. We can look at its narrative style and methods, its uses of point of view, its characterizations, its approaches to setting and imagery, and other formal aspects of the novel. We can also look at the contents of the story Neuromancer tells: the technologies, plot developments, and social commentaries included in it. All of these components of the novel may appear somewhat differently to us as 2009 readers than they did to readers in the 1980s, and it may prove helpful to keep its historical context in mind as you formulate a thesis about the novel and analyze it.

Here are the objectives of this essay-writing assignment:

You are expected to write a 6-8 page essay that focuses primarily on articulating a coherent and compelling analytical interpretation of the novel.

Your essay must include sustained analyses of formal aspects of the novel. You may consider any of those named above in the assignment, but you are not limited to these. And make sure you make use of your attention to form—don’t just drop a term and consider it sufficient.

Your essay must include analyses of the novel’s content. You are expected to complete this course having achieved the ability to read a literary text with both content and form in mind and to be able to put these elements of the text into conversation with each other.

Your essay must include references to two scholarly critiques of the novel as well as Bruce Sterling’s “Preface” to the cyberpunk anthology, Mirrorshades. Don’t worry: we will discuss source research and selection in class.
Your essay must include reference to at least one other literary text we’ve read in this class. This needs to be integrated into the writing and not simply dropped in to meet the requirement. Neuromancer is to remain the focus of the thesis and essay, but you are expected to draw upon another text to help illustrate a point.

Your essay must be thesis-driven and evidence-based. In other words, a successful essay will have a clear argument that is appropriate for the scope of a 6-8 page essay, and it will use direct textual evidence to develop the support for this thesis. Your essay must demonstrate close reading skills in its treatment of the textual evidence. To choose appropriate, convincing evidence, make sure each piece of text relates to your thesis and to the other pieces of evidence used in the essay. Remember that sometimes “less is more” when it comes to how much you quote. It’s better to analyze fully a selection of key moments in a text rather than include a large catalog of moments that are incompletely addressed.

And a successful essay will employ MLA citation practices and will be thoroughly proofread and edited. (The Learning Skills Center in Dutton Hall can help you with grammar/style and other issues, especially if you plan ahead to use their resources.)

Abstract:
You should submit a one-page abstract to me on November 17th. This is a proposal for your essay, and it should detail your position and plan for the argument. I will hand out an abstract form for you to use in completing this task.

Peer Workshop:
Reminder—as stated in the syllabus, the workshop on November 24th is required. Failure to attend or to attend without a substantial draft in hand will result in a 1/3 grade reduction on the final essay.

Checklist:
When you turn in the essay to me on December 3rd, make sure it includes the following:
o The final version
o The draft workshop version with comment sheets
o The abstract
o The revision memo


The following are some possible directions you could take to develop a good thesis, but this is not an exhaustive list. Feel free to consult with me as you develop your thesis idea.

Dualism of Mind and Body
Definitions of what it means to “Be Human”
Human relationships to Technology or Machines
Sex and Gender roles in the novel
Globalization
Representations of East Asia in the novel

Neuromancer homework for November 3

I think we’re off to a great start with Neuromancer. Please try to be patient with the strange world of objects, brand names, and the at-times jerky plot movements.

For Tuesday, please read pp. 40-118. This means all of Section II: The Shopping Expedition and the first two chapters of Section III: Midnight in the Rue Jules Verne.

As you read, please keep today’s frameworks/motifs in mind.
After you’ve read, please write a blog post of 250-350 words, discussing 2-3 passages that fall under one or perhaps a combination of frameworks/motifs. This will be a good exercise to build up to writing our next essay, so try to use it as a pre-writing that might come in handy when it comes time to write the real essay. You might pick passages of the framework that you are seeing very frequently, or a framework that is provocatively subtle, or one that simply interests you (if you’re a psych major, maybe the psychological aspects, a bio/biostats person the human/machine interfaces or the profiles, a computer scientist the way Gibson’s tech imaginings do and/or do not match up with reality today).

Homework for October 29: Neuromancer

Following the syllabus, please read Part 1 "Chiba City Blues" of Neuromancer. This is the first 39 pages in the paperback edition, though the pagination may differ if you bought a different edition.

As you read and perhaps re-read, please assemble a cast of characters. There are a lot of characters, so it will help you to write down names, information, and relationships.

Please keep track of the geography and movement of the narrative. Through which places (cities, nations, zones, neighborhoods, etc.) does the story move?

Lastly, pay attention to the descriptions of settings. How does Gibson describe these places? And, how does he describe the settings of cyberspace? How do cyberspace and external spaces differ from and/or resemble each other?

For your blog writing, please write 250-350 words on the last two sets of questions. You can keep the character list for yourself, but I'd like you to pay close attention to description of settings and place. Try to write this as free form responses to 2-4 passages involving setting without making a thesis. This is a brainstorming exercise.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" French Film version

You can watch a 30-minute film version of Bierce's story done by a French film director. It aired on the tv show: The Twilight Zone. This might even give you insights for your blog writing assignment on the story.

Homework for October 22

When you read and re-read Ambrose Bierce's "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," I want you to pay attention to narration and the organization of the plot. The story begins in a kind of 3rd Person Objective mode and then slips into a more subjective/limited mode. See if you can locate where there are mode switches and consider what effects this has for a reader. How does the opening get us into the story? What does it offer and what does it suppress? How does the transition of narrative mode change a reader's relationship to the events and to the main character? Perhaps associated with this is the emplotment of the story in a very non-chronological order. When you read, mark the points at which the story changes in time and see if you can notice an effect on how this gets you into the story differently.

With those ideas in mind, I want you to write 3 paragraphs for a total of 250-350 words on this story. Each paragraph should consider a different moment of transition in the story, whether of p.o.v., of chronology, or of both if you find them coinciding. They don't need to connect up in any way, but can remain 3 separate paragraphs of speculative response.

For Thursday, October 22

Your poetry essay is due in class today.

Also, please arrive at class having read the short stories by Poe and Bierce. The links are up in the Online Text section of the Class Blog. If you only have time to read one story, make sure you read the one by Poe.

Walt Whitman for Levis

In the previews before the real previews at the movies recently, I noticed the crowd go silent when this Levis ad, featuring the Walt Whitman poem "Pioneers! O Pioneers", came on the screen.

Scientists say reading challenging literature makes you a better learner...

A recent psychology study by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and University of British Columbia indicate that reading Kafka can improve your learning. So, consider reading some challenging literature before studying for your statistics midterms.

Poetry-in-Pop-Culture Update

You don't need to locate the actual video or audio clips of the poetry in popular culture examples.
Just list as much information as you can so others could find it if they look. For example, Stewie's allusion to the Dylan Thomas poem is in episode 21 of season 2 of Family Guy, called "Fore, Father."

Homework for October 20

Hi LitBloggers,
For Tuesday:
1. Work on your essays.
2. Read the Gary Snyder poems that should be hitting your inbox tomorrow attached to an email from me.
3. Use your online searching savvy to find at least 2 poetry-in-popular culture examples like the ones I showed in class today. Post them on your blog and write a few sentences commenting upon them. How do they enhance the text they appear in, and does our attention to and improved knowledge of poetry help you appreciate them in greater detail?

For October 15th

For Thursday, please read the assigned sections in the Hjortshoj book.
Also, please use this time to work on your first essay draft. There is no blog assignment or literary reading, so you should have no trouble bringing 3 pages of draftwork to class. Please bring 2 hard copies of your draft printed out.

And just to clarify, all homework is to be typed and printed out, not written by hand. The only handwritten work for this course will be any in-class writings we do.

Twitter-ature

In the "Fun Links" bar I pasted a link to a twitter account that is putting up complete literary texts one tweet (140 characters or less) at a time. They've done Moby Dick and are currently doing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's quite a different experience going through especially the long Melville text in such tiny bits (or is it bytes?).

Homework for October 13th

1. Read the poems assigned on the syllabus. I'm attaching a scan of the Rita Wong poems--please read "value chain" "fluorine" "the girl who ate rice almost every day" "nervous organism" "mess is lore" "forage, fumage" "recognition/identification test" and "chinese school dropout"-------when you read "recognition/identification test, the left column are plants and the right column are corporations: in your mind see how many plants you can visualize and how many corporate logos from the lists.

2. Select the poem for your first essay. Do some brainstorming on it. Try to use the strategies we use in class: make inventories of images, patterns, structure, etc. And try to draft up a thesis you might use for the essay. Bring the brainstorming and thesis ON PAPER to class.

3. There is NO blog assignment over the weekend ;P

Remembering Poe

Edgar Allan Poe finally getting proper funeral

By BEN NUCKOLS (AP)

BALTIMORE — For Edgar Allan Poe, 2009 has been a better year than 1849. After dozens of events in several cities to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth, he's about to get the grand funeral that a writer of his stature should have received when he died.

One hundred sixty years ago, the beleaguered, impoverished Poe was found, delirious and in distress outside a Baltimore tavern. He was never coherent enough to explain what had befallen him since leaving Richmond, Va., a week earlier. He spent four days in a hospital before he died at age 40.

Poe's cousin, Neilson Poe, never announced his death publicly. Fewer than 10 people attended the hasty funeral for one of the 19th century's greatest writers. And the injustices piled on. Poe's tombstone was destroyed before it could be installed, when a train derailed and crashed into a stonecutter's yard. Rufus Griswold, a Poe enemy, published a libelous obituary that damaged Poe's reputation for decades.

But on Sunday, Poe's funeral will get an elaborate do-over, with two services expected to draw about 350 people each — the most a former church next to his grave can hold. Actors portraying Poe's contemporaries and other long-dead writers and artists will pay their respects, reading eulogies adapted from their writings about Poe.

"We are following the proper etiquette for funerals. We want to make it as realistic as possible," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum.

Advance tickets are sold out, although Jerome will make some seats available at the door to ensure packed houses. Fans are traveling from as far away as Vietnam.

The funeral is arguably the splashiest of a year's worth of events honoring the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth. Along with Baltimore — where he spent some of his leanest years in the mid-1830s — Poe lived in or has strong connections to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Richmond.

With the funeral angle covered, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond staged a re-enactment last weekend of his death. Those with a more academic interest in Poe can attend the Poe Studies Association's annual conference from Thursday through Sunday in Philadelphia.

Visitors in Baltimore for the funeral can enjoy a new exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, "Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon," which includes chilling illustrations to "The Raven" by Edouard Manet.

Baltimore has a decided advantage over the other cities that lay claim to Poe, notes BMA director Doreen Bolger. "We have the body," she said.

This week, that's true in more ways than one. Jerome said he's gotten calls from people who thought he was going to exhume Poe's remains and rebury them.

"When they dug up Poe's body in 1875 to move it, it was mostly skeletal remains," Jerome said. "I've seen remains of people who've been in the ground since that time period, and there's hardly anything left."

Instead, Jerome commissioned local special-effects artist Eric Supensky to create an eerily lifelike — or deathlike — mock-up of Poe's corpse.

"I got chills," Jerome said Monday upon seeing the body for the first time. "This is going to freak people out."

The body will lie in state for 12 hours Wednesday at the Poe House, a tiny rowhome in a gritty section of west Baltimore. Visitors are invited to pay their respects.

Following the viewing will be an all-night vigil at Poe's grave at Westminster Burying Ground. Anyone who attends will have the opportunity to deliver a tribute.

On Sunday morning, a horse-drawn carriage will transport the replica of Poe's body from his former home to the graveyard for the funeral.

Actor John Astin, best known as Gomez Addams on TV's "The Addams Family," will serve as master of ceremonies.

"It's sort of a way of saying, 'Well, Eddie, your first funeral wasn't a very good one, but we're going to try to make it up to you, because we have so much respect for you,'" said Astin, who toured as Poe for years in a one-man show.

The service won't be a total lovefest, however. The first eulogy will come from none other than Griswold.

"People are asking me, 'Jeff, why are you inviting him? He hated Poe!'" Jerome said. "The reason is, most of these people defended Poe in response to what he said about Poe's life, so we can't have this service without having old Rufus sitting in the front row, spewing forth his hatred."

Eulogies will follow from actors portraying, among others, Sarah Helen Whitman, a minor poet whom Poe courted after his wife's death, and Walt Whitman, who attended the dedication of Poe's new gravestone in 1875 but didn't feel well enough to speak. Writers and artists influenced by Poe, including Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Hitchcock, will also be represented.

Jerome expects to cry — one reason he won't be speaking. Even his rivals are impressed with the scale of the tribute.

"Annoyed as I am with Baltimore sometimes, I have to give them credit," said Philadelphia-based Poe scholar Edward Pettit, who argues his city was of greater importance to Poe's life and literary career. "Baltimore has done an awful lot to maintain the legacy of Poe over the last 100-some years."


* Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum: http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/historic/poehouse.php

First Essay Assignment: Analyzing Poetry

ESSAY 1: Analyzing Poetry

Length: Approximately 1200-1500 words (4-5 pages, double-spaced)
Draft Workshop: October 15th
Essay Due: October 22nd in class

During the weeks we are spending on poetry, we will read and discuss a wide variety of poems. They were written in different historical moments, employ various poetic forms and styles (which they sometimes follow rigorously and sometimes modify), and these poems engage with a diverse array of subject matter (interpersonal love, impending death, war, gender/racial equality, poetry, nature, religion & spirituality…). In addition to this archive of poetry, we will have worked on several reading strategies to help analyze a poem. We attend to the functions of lines, rhyme, rhythm, forms like the sonnet, pace, imagery, ambiguities, punctuation, etc. This essay is an opportunity for you to exercise some of these strategies as a way of making an analytical argument about one poem that we have not read in class.

For this essay, you will select ONE of the poems from the list below. The purpose of this essay is to construct a cohesive, concise, and convincing argument about a single poem. A successful essay will incorporate the following:

o A Clear Thesis: an effective thesis is focused and requires evidence and explanation to convince the reader.
o Evidence: Especially in an essay this short, it is imperative that you ground your claims in evidence directly from the text. Include quotes to show what parts of a text give you certain impressions or ideas, and explain why they give you those ideas/impressions. An outstanding essay will also be able to incorporate some counter-arguments about the evidence it uses.
o Analysis of Form AND Content: Be sure to construct your analysis by discussing BOTH the subject matter or content of the poem AND the poetic forms and structures at work in the poem. An outstanding essay will analyze evidence that shows relationships between form and content.

Guidelines:
o Research is not necessary. For such a short essay, I do not want to read thoughts other than your own. This also makes it easier for you to create an original thesis and argument without the risk of being overly dependent on another critic’s ideas.
o Make sure you choose appropriate, convincing evidence. It should relate to your thesis and to the other pieces of evidence used in the essay. Remember that sometimes “less is more” when it comes to how much you quote. It’s better to analyze fully a selection of key moments in a text rather than include a large group of them that are incompletely addressed.
o Use appropriate academic language and style. Proofread and edit for grammar and style.
o Proper MLA citation for quotes.


The List of Poems: You can likely find most of these poems online, and I suggest using bartleby.com or Google books. I recommend looking at several if not all before settling on your selection for the essay. Once you’ve chosen, it might be a good idea to find the poem in print in the library to have an accurate printing upon which to make your analysis.



Frank O’Hara “Having a Coke with You” or “Why I Am Not a Painter”
Li-Young Lee “Persimmons”
Elizabeth Bishop “Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance”
Robert Browning “Porphyria’s Lover” or “My Last Duchess”
Langston Hughes “The Weary Blues” or “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” or “I, Too”
Allen Ginsberg “A Supermarket in California”
Robinson Jeffers “Hurt Hawks” or “Shine, Perishing Republic”
Percy Shelley “Ozymandias”
Rita Dove “Dusting”
E.A. Robinson “Richard Cory”
Marianne Moore “To a Snail” or “The Mind is an Enchanting Thing”

Assignment Due October 8th

This assignment focuses on Richard Brautigan's poem "All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace."

After reading this poem carefully and many, many, many times, please write a 250-300 word piece about it. Specifically, the first half of your writing (probably 2 or more paragraphs) should assemble and explain evidence from the text to argue that the poem's message is Anti-Technology. In the second half of your writing, try to make reverse argument, using evidence, that the poem is Pro-Technology. Then, in one final paragraph, explain which message you agree with and tell what evidence tips the balance for you and why.

ALSO, we'll talk a bit about Hjortshoj on Thursday, so be sure you've read the assigned pages--and feel free to read outside the assigned pages as I think this book has many useful insights, especially for first-year students.

Writing Assignment Due October 6th

Step 1: Select one poem from those on the syllabus for this class.
Step 2: Make a comprehensive list of the images in this poem. This can just be a list without complete sentences. The purpose is to create an inventory so you can then decide what to focus on in your writing.
Step 3: Now, select one type of image or a few images you think somehow work together in that poem and write a 300-350 word hypothesis about how this image offers an interpretation of the poem.

For example, if this assignment was today you might have written a comparative argument about the three images in Shakespeare's quatrains. You might have compared the people and their settings in Wordsworth, whether incorporating the bees or not.

The poems for Tuesday are rich in imagery, so this should be an inviting assignment. Please have it posted on your blog before 12.10pm when we meet.

English and the Sciences meet in the Vampire

An intersection of Physics/Math/Stats and Literature:

Physicists Costas Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi published a paper "Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality" that attempts to prove vampires could not exist.

Efthimiou and Gandhi conduct a thought experiment: Assume that the first vampire appeared on January 1, 1600. At that time, according to data available at the U.S. Census website, the global population was 536,870,911. Efthimiou and Gandhi calculate that, once the Nosferatu feeding frenzy began, the entire human race would have been wiped out by June 1602.

However, mathematician, Dino Sejdinovic published a rebuttal to their argument in the November 2008 Math Horizons called "Mathematics of the Human-Vampire Conflict."

Gwendolyn Brooks's "First Fight. Then Fiddle."

First Fight. Then Fiddle. (1949)

First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string
With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note
With hurting love; the music that they wrote
Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing
Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing
For the dear instrument to bear. Devote
The bow to silks and honey. Be remote
A while from malice and from murdering,
But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate
In front of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.

Assignment Due October 1st

Before you come to class on Thursday, October 1st, please do the following:

1) Create your own blog at blogger.com. Make sure you have a gmail account via gmail.com. Then sign in using that email address and password on blogger.com. Follow the 3 easy steps to start a blog.

2) Give your blog any title you like. Then, write a 200-250 word explanation of why you gave it this title. Post this writing as your first post on the blog.

3) Email me your blog url. The course url is isitlit.blogspot.com. In other words, send me the web address and not the title.

4) Read the poems indicated in the syllabus. I am putting links to these online texts on the course blog now. Come with some observations of them for discussion.

5) Email me with any questions or difficulties.

Course Syllabus

ENL3-020 Introduction to Literature
Fall 2009

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

“Little Gidding” in Four Quartets
By T.S. Eliot

Required Texts: Neuromancer by William Gibson, M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, The Transition to College Writing by Keith Hjortshoj, and other texts will be available online.

Prerequisite: You must have already completed the “Subject A” requirement to take English 3.

Course Description and Objectives:
The quote from T.S. Eliot’s poem above is provocatively paradoxical. If we shall not cease from exploration, how can there be an end? And what does it mean that we’ll know this familiar place for the first time? I chose this literary excerpt as a way of prefacing the course because it sets the tone for this quarter of studying literature as something quite complicated that requires ongoing and rigorous exploration to reveal new perspectives. To consider just how complicated literature is, see if you can, without consulting a dictionary, articulate a concise definition of literature. Can you tell me how to know when I am reading a work of literature as opposed to something else? Is Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight literature—and why or why not?? Is literature a means of escape and enjoyment, a way to engage with ideas, a way to encounter beauty, a combination of these, or something else entirely? Furthermore, consider why reading literature is valued by individuals, society, and as part of a university degree. And, underlying these questions is the matter of whether literature still matters in our present moment of online social networking and other developments in communication, art, and culture.
These are all difficult questions to answer, and this quarter is for you about working hard toward being able to express positions on them as well as other crucial issues regarding literature. To help you achieve this objective, the course is designed to introduce you to advanced analysis of literary form, technique, genre, content, and socio-historical contexts. There is a strong emphasis on literary form and technique in this class because attention to these issues can greatly enrich our understanding and enjoyment of literature and make even the most challenging poetry accessible.
This class embraces these ideas and takes as its main objective teaching a core set of skills required to analyze, appreciate, and enjoy works of literature with an interest in content, form, and context. You will develop these skills through close reading a wide range of literary works in a variety of genres, and by writing responses, including formal pieces, about the works that pique your interest.
Throughout this quarter, you should strive to obtain and cultivate the following abilities:
• Develop a thoughtful, informed, and sophisticated perspective on the notion of literature in general and on any given literary text.
• Situate your perspective in the context of the university, the field, and/or the conversation at hand.
• Communicate your perspective clearly through writing to appropriate audiences.

Cultivating these habits of mind is our aim this quarter, so let’s peel open poetry, gnaw on a novel, and digest some drama!

Course Assignments:

Blog Writings and Projects
You will create and maintain a blog for this course. There will be regular writing assignments and/or projects to be completed and posted on your blog by the deadlines indicated in each assignment. These writings contribute to the 6000-word writing requirement for this course, range from informal to formal style, and will be evaluated on assignment-specific requirements.

Reading Quizzes, Attendance, and Participation
There will be regular short reading quizzes at the beginning of class meetings. These quizzes will be given at the start of class meetings, so be prompt in order to give yourself the full time to complete them. Also, you are expected to attend class regularly and having completed the reading. Significant absences or late arrivals will lower this portion of your grade.

Formal Papers and Draft Workshops:
You will write two evidence-based, thesis-driven essays this quarter. Your essays will go through draft workshops aimed at helping you revise the final versions. Attendance is required at the workshops—failure to attend or failure to bring a substantial draft will result in an automatic 1/3 reduction of your grade for that paper (i.e. a B becomes a B-). These assignments will be handed out well in advance of the due dates so you can start planning and drafting early.

Final Exam:
The midterm exam will be on Friday, December 11th, 6-8pm.

Grading/Evaluation Policies:

Blog 25%
Reading Quizzes/Part./Att.: 10%
Formal Essays 50% (Poetry 20%, Fiction 30%)
Final Exam: 15%



Submitting Your Essays:
Your essays must be submitted to me on the assigned dates. DO NOT submit any papers to the English or University Writing Program department offices. They do no accept student papers. In case of medical or other emergency, contact me before the due date to discuss an extension; extensions are granted only under exceptional circumstances. Late papers will receive a 1/3 grade reduction for each day past the due date, and no papers are accepted after the final exam.

Office Hours:
You are greatly encouraged to visit me in my office hours early and often! I have found office hour meetings significantly beneficial to students, whether in the brainstorming phases of pre-writing, working through a challenging text or idea, or in the midst of final essay revisions. If your schedule precludes you from coming to my scheduled office hours, I am willing to make an appointment. I do not accept drafts over email, so do stop by to see me.

Course Requirements and Policies:

 ENL3 has a 6000-word requirement. You must complete every graded written assignment, including the final exam, in order to fulfill the requirement and pass the course. If you are missing any formal assignment at the end of the quarter, I cannot pass you.
 You must earn a C- or better in order to pass, even if you have turned in all the work.

Academic Honesty:
With regard to plagiarism, don’t do it! Submitting the work of others is a serious academic offense that you will do well to avoid. Suspect papers will be submitted to the UC Davis Student Judicial Affairs to follow university procedures regarding academic honesty. I am happy to help you avoid this issue, so bring any questions to class or office hours before the assignment is due. A complete outline of university policies and guidelines for avoiding plagiarism can be found at http://sja.ucdavis.edu.

Disclosures:
If you require any accommodation in the course due to a disability, please acquire formal documentation of the disability from the UC Davis Disability Resources Center. You may then notify me by providing the documentation so I can make arrangements to meet your needs.

Modifications:
Course schedule subject to change with advance notification from instructor. Course policies will be modified only if absolutely necessary.



ENL 3: Introduction to Literature: Fall 2009
Schedule of Reading and Writing Assignments

You are expected to complete assignments for the day on which they are listed. You will be notified of any changes to this schedule well in advance, both in class and electronically.

Thu., Sep. 24 Course Introduction

Tue., Sep. 28 First reading and writing. Establishing our blogs.
Key Concepts: Defining “Literature” and How & Why to Write About it

Thu., Oct. 1 “What is Poetry?”
Read Shakespeare “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”, Wordsworth “Nuns Fret Not”, Brooks "First Fight. Then Fiddle", “Sonnet” by Christina Rosetti
Key Concepts: Line, Stanza, Rhyme, Rhythm, Metre, The Sonnet form
Writing: Evidence and Claims 1

Tue., Oct. 6 “A dimpled spider, fat and white”
Read Keats “This Living Hand”, Frost “Design”, Hemans “Casabianca”, Rich “Diving into the Wreck” and Hjortshoj: 5-15, 20-28
Key Concepts: Imagery and Symbolism
Writing: Evidence and Claims 2

Thu., Oct. 8 “Form and Content, Form versus Content, Form as Content”
Read Emily Dickinson “I dwell in Possibility”, Pound “In a Station on the Metro”, Blake “The Tyger”, Ted Hughes “Crow’s Theology”, Brautigan “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”; Hjortshoj:30-39,45-52
Key Concepts: Couplet, Ambiguity, the Dash—
Writing: Introductions—making a first impression

Tue., Oct. 13 “It Gathers to a Greatness”
Read Hopkins “God’s Grandeur” and select poems by Rita Wong
Key Concepts: Pace, Texture, Punctuation, Repetition, and Play
Writing: Formulating your thesis

Thu., Oct. 15 Poetic Form and Writing about Literature
Hjortshoj: 56-77, 107-130
Draft Workshop: Poetry essay

Tue., Oct. 20 “Poet on the Peaks: Gary Snyder in Context”
Read Poetry Handout of Snyder’s poems
Key Concepts: Reading poems in the context of the author and his/her historical/social/cultural contexts. Conclude poetry segment.

Thu., Oct. 22 “What is Narrative?”
Read Bierce “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, Poe “The Cask of Amontillado”
Thu., Oct. 22(cont) Key Concepts: Basic Structures of Story & Plot—Fabula & Syuzhet
Poetry Essay Due in class

Tue., Oct. 27 “There are no longer problems of the spirit.”
Read Faulkner “A Rose for Emily” and Nobel Prize Banquet Speech
Key Concepts: Narrative persona, characterization, revelation-suggestion-suppression
Writing: Conclusions

Thu., Oct 29 “The sky above the port…”
Read Neuromancer: 1-39
Key concepts: Beginnings and motifs, cyberpunk generic conventions
Writing: Organization—at the local and global levels of your writing

Tue., Nov. 3 “Toggling Subjectivities”
Read Neuromancer: 40-118
Key Concepts: Focalization, POV, Multi-layered/Nested narratives,
Writing: Development—extending your ideas into longer writings

Thu., Nov. 5 “The recorded blue of a Cannes sky”
Read Neuromancer: 119-158
Key Concepts: Settings and the Cyber/Real, Nonhuman characters
Writing: Technology and Academic Writing

Tue., Nov. 10 “The Chinese Virus was Unfolding around Them”
Read Neuromancer: 159-222
Key Concepts: Technology and narrative, race and ethnicity in literature

Thu., Nov. 12 “…it’ll change something”
Read Neuromancer: 223-261
Conclude Narrative Segment

Tue., Nov. 17 “What is Drama?”
Read Sophocles Oedipus the King lines 1-708
version
Key Concepts: Acts, Scenes, Lines, Stage Directions
Writing: Revisions: strategies and priorities

Thu., Nov. 19 “You all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus”
Read Oedipus the King lines 709-1584
< http://www.bartleby.com> version
Key Concepts: Drama & Genre, History of Drama
Writing: Process and Product—thinking through the portfolio

Tue., Nov. 24 “Yes, I am. I am your Butterfly.”
Read M Butterfly, Through Act 2, Scene 7 (1-63)
Tue., Nov. 24(cont) Key Concepts: Social drama—race and gender
Writing: In-Class Draft Workshop on Fiction Essay

Tue. Dec. 1 “I have a vision…”
Finish reading M Butterfly
Film Screening & Discussion

Thu., Dec. 3 “Of Last Things”
Review for Final Exam
Fiction Essay Due in class




Friday, Dec. 11 Final Exam: 6-8pm