“The project is to learn to write with patterns that function
more like music than like concepts.” (91)

— Ulmer, Heuretics

“For what one lacks access to from experience one will have no ear. ”

— Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

 
Final Project: “Resonance Assemblage”

 
Informal Proposal — due Friday 27-Nov
     — (contact me if you need to post on Saturday, as I am replying in queue)

 
suggested reading: “Mystory” excerpts by Ulmer (PDF)
 
Review Experiment, especially CATTt
        (and notes from 09 & 23 Nov classes;
        have you updated your “Analogy” category inventory?)

 
Final Project: “Resonance Assemblage”

 
Context: (parameters)

02 September 1945 – 10 September 2001
American Society
(temporal, geographic, social, political, economic “setting”)

 
“Genre”:

Hybrid — “critical” and “creative.”
Writing with our entire “paradigm,” all three levels of discourse:
personal (autobiographical), cultural (literature, art, popular media), and disciplinary (scholarly, professional); see Ulmer on this combination.

 
 

Project Proposal

 
Informal and brief answers (1-2 sentences), to the extent you’ve developed and researched (both academically and personally) initial topic; including a sentence describing difficulty/uncertainty or posing a question is also useful (both for you and me).
Answer to best extent that you can at this time, with revision and/or supplement later; note that the more developed your ideas, the better feedback and guidance I can provide (I will not respond to proposals missing more than one answer, though).

 
 
1) What specific experience will you undertake the task of, and take responsibility for, expressing? What is the concrete historical context?

Describe the experience first in objective terms, with as many traits/categories as you can:
both A) Historical Situation, Event, Issue (actual, not invented)
and B) Identity
(entire “matrix”: race/ethnicity, sex/gender, sexuality, class, religion, age, etc.)

Note: while we are intuiting the lived experience, we’ll detach the affect from the specific identity (e.g. family member), so as not to make a personal anecdote (or “family history”) — but one slight degree removed. More about this focus later; you can cite a tentative affect (subjective dimension of lived experience), but likely will work on this subsequently.

 
 
2) “Explanation” or “account” of this experience from a conventional view? What is the dominant understanding?
(belief/morality or reason/disciplinary discourse — foreground your point of contrast)
Source of objective account? (list one, even if you’ll research more later.)

 
 
3) Personal resonance for you in the present?
(hint: testing whether this is your feeling/bias, or whether you are “attuned” to past experience of event.) Source and level of your familiarity? (i.e. extent of “expertise” or “curiosity”?)
note: not necessarily “easier” or “better” to undertake something extensively knowledgeable about; might actually be more challenging — what about an area of inquiry or “wondering,” within this same objective topic? see Q. 5)
Advantage and/or difficulty of this personal resonance for the project?

 
 
4) One cultural narrative or image that is prominent in your memory (any media)?
(Or, what is one narrative that comes to mind by association, from any discourse? Use intuitive and associative logic…)

 
 
5) One “forgotten” (or overlooked, neglected) aspect or element? (remember: Lêthê…)
Speculate a “blindspot” of historical discourse: what is conventionally forgotten or excluded about this experience?
(Or, what is “filtered” out by reason, and possibly by reductive binary logic?)
Why is it important to actively “recall” (resonate) and inscribe this into writing and into present/future memory? (”socio-historical significance,” humanities perspective)
 
In what specific way, “impossible” to express? (Literally speaking.)
As for project, what practical obstacles do you foresee at present?

 
 
6) One lesson (abstract) and one technqiue (specific) from one of our relay novels, that you will implement? (”Analogy” in CATTt)
If able, list the key poetics that seem promising for the project, so far.
Reviewing our novels, how many narratives seem to be an adequate/effective number to include in the assemblage? (i.e. estimate minimum and maximum)

 
 
7 ) A potential interface? and A potential figure (expressive)?
(from any level of discourse: personal, cultural, disciplinary — perhaps “discovered” through this week’s “mining” exercise; if not, need more reflexive contemplation…)
 
 

 M 23-Nov    Due: Response 6 — Part I (1:55pm) Creative Prompt

— Part II: Analysis of Classmate’s Entry (due 11:59pm). Prompt

Extra Credit (optional) Analytic Response — Prompt

Response 6 Extra Credit Prompt: 500-600 words, 10 points; due M 23-Nov (11:59pm)
Review assignment criteria here

 
Crying of Lot 49 Narrative & Knowledge Analysis

 
As an “anti-detective” novel, there is less certainty at the conclusion — inductive logic does not produce “resolution,” through the proliferation of “clues.” Simultaneously, “revelation” or “discovery” of the truth does not occur, even with the narrative of “reduction” of possibilities — as dramatized in the progressive elimination of characters from Oedipa’s “social network.”

 
Oedipa’s failure through her reduction to binary logic and the novel’s overall absence of closure suggest another mode of thought is necessary, other than truth as aletheia (disclosure): Pynchon presents a network (or “assemblage“) of narratives, figures, possibilities, histories, logics, and….and….

 
Prompt

First, discuss the consequence of Pynchon’s redirecting our focus off of “what happens” at the “conclusion” onto the multiple narratives; how can we interpret the novel other than “meaningless” or incomplete (reductive/exclusionary logic)?
As illustration (support), briefly describe how some of the narratives relate or operate, with specific references (summarize concisely). Besides the “paranoid conspiracy,” consider a simple example from Abbott: the way that seemingly “supplementary” developments become “constituent” information or events for Oedipa. (This is just one Cambridge example; use any/all topics from our study of narrative this term.)

 
Next, and most importantly, discuss how two (or more) disparate elements or narratives resonate, through Pynchon’s poetics. What is the effect? the consequence?

 
Finally, (as conclusion)

describe any new insights or overall understanding of
expression, knowledge (”Truth”), modes of thought besides binary;
and/or “interface metaphor” (with?), as well as narratives functioning as interface (with?).

From this, what is one lesson or technique you’ve learned from Pynchon, for our project?

F 04-Sept       Cambridge / Narrative Chapter 6 plus
                       Katherine Anne Porter: “Theft” (1929)

 
Online Discussion — required (attendance/participation credit)
                       See instructions below and post replies in comments here.

Part I (due by 2pm)
Part II (due by 4pm)

 
 
Reminders / Other Tasks:

• Request Discussion Dates (by 04-Sept)
   

• First Blog Entry (“reading journal”) — Due Friday (on your blog)
  • Discuss any of the 5 short stories from this week;
    and/or any concept(s) from Abbott (first 6 chapters), illustrating with narratives of your choice.

  • General Suggestions
  • “Tech Support” entry

   

• Read The Great Gatsby over long weekend.
  • (discussing through Chapter 4 on W 09-Sept)

  • Read Abbott Chp. 6 closely for Gatsby discussion.

operating principle:
Narratives “don’t tell us what to think but cause us to think. Narrative…is a ‘machine to think with’.” (Abbott 63)

 
Friday 04-Sept Online Class Discussion
(required for attendance; recorded as double participation credit)

Porter’s “Theft” & Cambridge / Narrative (Chps 4-6)

 
 
Part I: post comment by class time (late penalty applies).

1) Identify a specific example from “Theft” of one narrative concept from Abbott:

• Normalization of Sequence/Events (pp. 44-5)
  • Causation (cause/effect), series (p. 41)

  • Constituent / Supplementary events (pp. 23; 230-1)
• Closure or Absence/Closure (pp. 63-4)
  • at level of expectations (pp.58-9)

  • at level of questions (pp. 60-1)
  • in terms of resolution (pp. 56-7)
• Narration (pp. 25; 40; 55; 68-9; 238-9)
  • “Voice” (pp. 70-3; 243)

  • “Focalization” (pp. 73-4; 233)
  • In/direct discourse (69-70; 77-8; 234)

 
Note: Ideally, everyone will try to identify a particular concept without repetition of examples; although, varied examples of a repeat concept are perfectly fine (and even productive for Part II).

 
 
2) Briefly describe the “function” of your example, as a narrative “device” in the text (review class notes and Abbott on this).

            – in other words, describe the significance or consequence of the author’s decision for narrative discourse, the role/factor of this device in the text; for example, the influence/impact upon your reading/interpretation.

 
 
 
Part II: briefly reply to one classmate (by 4pm), in a comment here.

            –flexible options / suggestions; prompts (choose one; remember, replies can be brief):
 

• Compare/contrast the function that your classmate has described, e.g. how your readings differed, and how this changes our understanding of the short story.
   

• Compare/contrast classmate’s example with another narrative — either one we’ve read this week, or one you’ve recently encountered elsewhere (in any medium or form: e.g. short story, TV episode, video game, news account, spoken narration / anecdote, etc.). Ideally, focus upon same/similar concept from Abbott, to discuss examples.

   

• In response to classmate’s analysis, describe any new insights (e.g. what you’ve learned, what you see differently) about the particular text and, more importantly, about the narrative concept from Abbott.