Dec 4th, 2011

Contemporary Lit / Hypermedia Age

3

» “Contemporary American Lit” AML 2070-8599 Fall 2011

T 06-Dec    Last Class

 

 

W 07-Dec    » Optional Blog Entry (extra credit)

  • Optional Readings (which to respond):
    • Robert Coover, “The End of Books” New York Times (21 June 1992) Permalink
    • Scott Rettberg, “Experiments in Irrational Exuberance: The Present and Future of Electronic Literature” (The Context of Electronic Literature“) KAIROS Volume 7, Issue 3 Fall 2002
    • Paul Lefarge, “Why the Book’s Future Never Happened” Salon 04 Oct 2011

      And then…nothing happened. The Wikipedia entry for hypertext fiction lists no works published after 2001, and although Wikipedia isn’t the final word on anything, you have to think, if someone had written a hypertext fiction, this is where they’d want to tell you about it.

 
 

R 08-Dec    No Classes (“Finals Reading Day”)
 

  • Due: Friday   Response 5 (Creative/Hybrid Exercise) — Prompt
    — Extra Credit: Respond to classmate’s entry (due Sat) — Prompt

 
 

S 11-Dec    Due: Essay Revision & Reflection (optional)

 

 
 

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Nov 27th, 2011

Re-defining

6

 

T 29-Nov   

    • Read: Gloria Anzaldúa “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (excerpt from Borderlands/La Frontera) — Norton

    • Read: “Contemporary American Literature”
      — Kathryn VanSpanckeren, America.gov Archive (2008)

      •  

        Discuss: Essay 2 Novels / Analyses;
        — further defining “American Literature,” from survey & essays.

 

R 01-Dec    Read/Discuss:

    • Maxine Hong Kingston, “No Name Woman”
      & N. Scott Momaday The Way to Rainy Mountain (excerpts)
      — web version of section 1 (optional)

 

F 02-Dec    Due: Blog entry (last one)
 

    • Optional Reading Response: “American Lit” Defined (extra credit) — due Sunday

 

Nov 20th, 2011

Study: Multimodal Novel

3

 

T 21-Nov    Essay Workshop
 

    Due: Project Notes (topic, thesis, support topics/examples; questions) — preparation for class (post Monday night).

  • Discuss: Composition Tips (examples essential — preparation task)
    • Analysis Support strategies (quotes, paraphrase, summary)
    • Introduction & Conclusion (project aims, scope/focus)

  • Preparation: Consult resources (Gardner, Purdue, files) — below.

     
     
     

    W 23-Nov    » Optional Blog Entry (extra credit)

      • Suggested prior readings for topics/terms to discuss or engage:
    • Ronald Sukenick, “Innovative Fiction/Innovative Criteria” & & William H. Gass “The Medium of Fiction” (eLearning)
    • Prior lecture notes on:
      Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text” (Image-Music-Text, pp. 155-64) notes — here.
      Hélène Cixous, Readings (1991) notes — here.
    • Norton “U.S. Lit Since 1945 Intro”   |   Postmodern American Fiction Intro

     

     
    R 24-Nov    No Classes   (Thanksgiving)

     
    S 25-Nov    » Due   Essay 2 (on eLearning, midnight deadline)
     

     
     

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    Nov 13th, 2011

    Examining Novels

    3


     

    T 15-Nov    Read:

    • “Postmodern Manifestos” (Norton Vol E 7th Edition, 2485-92)   online (e-Learning):
      Ronald Sukenick, “Innovative Fiction/Innovative Criteria” (1974)
      & William H. Gass “The Medium of Fiction” (1970)

      •  

    • Discuss: method of study; modes and forms of novels selected
      for Essay 2 (with examples — class preparation task)

      • Lecture notes from:
        » Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text” (Image-Music-Text, pp. 155-64) notes — below.
        » Hélène Cixous, Readings (1991) notes — below.

     
     

    W 16-Nov    » Due: Project Notes (initial idea, toward essay topic/thesis) — preparation for conference (Thursday).

     

    R 17-Nov    Individual Conferences   (schedule meeting times)

        — Discuss: Novel, project approach; Essay 2 topic, thesis

     
    F 18-Nov    » Due   Blog entry (on novel)
     

    • Read/discuss: Cambridge / Narrative Chp 12 “Narrative worlds” (pp. 160-74) online (e-Learning)

      • — note: review key topics from Abbott   (and include in blog discussion?)

     
     
     

    Nov 6th, 2011

    Multimodal

    6


     

    T 08-Nov    Read/Discuss:

      • Leslie Silko, “Lullaby” (Norton)

      • Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek” (Norton)
        • Discuss: storytelling, myth, oral tradition
        • Discussion Leader: Jessica (introduction below)

      • Also discuss & review: modes of poetry & prose;
        — Essay 2 (approach, aims, method); Project Proposal

     

    W 09-Nov    Blog Entry — due Friday

      • optional prompt: blog about one story, new mode introduced

     

    R 10-Nov    Independent Reading Day (read novel)

      — be sure to have chosen in consultation (email exchange and/or office discussion), especially for reading tips.

     
    F 11-Nov    No Classes (Veterans Day)
     

    • Due: Blog Entry — Project Proposal

        • — identify novel & selection rationale; briefly propose approach / perspective (specify modes to examine), as well as tentative topic; “hypothesis” and/or idea motivating inquiry? (viz. “Scientific Method”) i.e. seeking to learn/find, beginning expectations, perhaps with conventional definition of “novel” as literary form & expression?

     

     

    “I want to work on passion as path and on the encounter, perhaps the struggle, between passion and history.
    All this, for me, goes through the inscription of passion in writing.
    In the ensemble of texts one can choose from, a certain number burn either positively or negatively, with love or regret.” — Cixous, “The Inscription of Passion in Writing” (Readings 110)

     
     

    Oct 30th, 2011

    Circuitous Thought

    5

    by phoenix wolf-ray

     
     
     
     

    T 01-Nov    Read/Discuss:

      » Discussion (continued): modes of poetry (image, indirection, figure); Modernism, Imagism

    — Lecture notes from Hirshfield Nine Gates Ch. 5: “Poetry and the Mind of Indirection”

    » Also discuss: Essay 2 objective — study of multiple modes in novels

     

       

      W 02-Nov    Weekly Blog Entry — Due Thursday

       
       

      R 03-Nov   

    • Discussion leader: Caitlin Penny

      •  
      » Due: Blog Entry

       
       

      F 04-Nov    No Classes (Homecoming)
       

      S 06-Nov    Due: Exercise 4 — Prompt below.

       
       
       
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      Oct 29th, 2011

      Writing Rules

      0


       
       
       
      — Image source
       
       
       
       
       

      Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

       

        Jonathan Franzen:

          1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

          2 Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.

          3 Never use the word “then” as a ­conjunction – we have “and” for this purpose. Substituting “then” is the lazy or tone-deaf writer’s non-solution to the problem of too many “ands” on the page.

          4 Write in the third person unless a ­really distinctive first-person voice ­offers itself irresistibly.

          5 When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.

          6 The most purely autobiographical ­fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto­biographical story than “The Meta­morphosis”.

          7 You see more sitting still than chasing after.

          8 It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

          9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

          10 You have to love before you can be relentless.

        — The Guardian 19 February 2010 (permalink)

       
       

      Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Tom Wolfe and Gore Vidal


      — Image source
       
       

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