Engl 4040 Modernism and Postmodernism, Fall 2015, O'Donnell, ETSU

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Calendar
last update: November 17, 2015

 

Class meets TR 11:15am-12:35pm, in Burleson 304.

 

Note:  I will add informal writing assignments, and clarifications of reading assignments, to this calendar, from time to time.  Any time I do that, I will be sure to announce the updates in class.  In any case, the basic semester outline, including exam and major writing due dates posted here, below, will not change.  -- Dr. O'Donnell, odonnell@etsu.edu 

 

Week 1 (Tues Aug 25; Thurs Aug 27)

Tuesday:  Introductions.  Some "isms":  Romanticism, modernism, postmodernism, others. 

 

Thursday:  

Read Mrs. Dalloway through p. 69--through the end of the scene where Septimus has the psychotic episode in Regent's Park, and the clock strikes quarter to 12, and the narrative gets passed to Peter Walsh. (In this online version, that scene appears on page 38 of 105.) 

Informal Writing Assignments for Thursday: 

  1.) As you read the novel, keep track of every time the bell rings.  (For each time the bell rings, write the page number, either in the back of the book, or in separate notes that you bring to class.) 

  2.) Keep track of the characters you meet.  On a separate sheet of paper, list each main character's name, along with the page number where you first met them, plus a sentence or two describing who they are.  Bring that to class, and be prepared to pass it around to classmates. 

 

Week 2 (Tues Sep 1; Thurs Sep 3)

Tuesday:

- More Mrs. Dalloway.  Also, bring your poetry anthology to class today.  We'll discuss Woolf in the context of modernist poets. 

- Also due today:  In-class presentation topic proposal:

Your assignment is to "teach a class" on one of the assigned works, this semester.  So: write me a memo in which you propose which work you would like to teach.  Why are you interested in this particular work?  What makes you qualified to teach it?  Do you have any ideas, yet, on what material you would present to the class, to help students find their way into that work? 

 

Thursday: Finish Mrs. Dalloway, the novel. Also, bring your copy of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 to class.

 

Week 3 (Tues Sep 8; Thurs Sep 10)

Tuesday:  Begin reading Vonnegut.  Bring the book to class.  Also, read "At Last, Kurt Vonnegut's Famous Dresden Book."  An unsigned review of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.  New York Times, March 31, 1969.  www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-slaughterhouse.html

Thursday:  Read Vonnegut through chapter 5 (through p135). 

 

Week 4 (Tues Sep 15; Thurs Sep 17)

Tuesday: 

- Finish reading Vonnegut. 

- Begin reading Don Delillo's White Noise.  Bring that book to class. 

- Also, browse the online table of contents of the Norton anthology of Postmodern American Fiction: www.wwnorton.com/college/english/pmaf/pmaftoc.htm. Write a short memo, to me and your classmates, commenting on the contents of that anthology: Do you recognize any of the titles/ authors represented there? Do you have a particular interest in any of them? Did anything about that anthology catch your eye? Bring your memo to class, and be prepared to pass it around for comments. What do you think of the term "postmodernism"?

 

Thursday:

Read Delillo, parts I and II (through p163). 

- Read Ihab Hassan. "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism." From The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture, 1987. www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/HssnPoMo.pdf

 

Week 5 (Tues Sep 22; Thurs Sep 24)

Tuesday: 

- Finish Delillo's White Noise. 

- Begin reading Beloved, by Toni Morrison.  Bring that book to class.

 

Thursday:  Read Beloved at least through Chapter 14. 

- Read "Ghosts of a brutal past:  Why Toni Morrison's Beloved - a sensational story of slavery and racism in America - has endured."  By Jane Smiley.  The Guardian [Manchester, England].  Saturday 8 July 2006.  www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/08/fiction.tonimorrison 

 

Week 6 (Tues Sep 29; Thurs Oct 1)

Tuesday:  Finish Beloved.

Thursday: 

- In-class--screening of Errol Morris's film, "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." (1999), 91 min. Please note that the movie will begin at 11:10am, though class time does not officially start until 11:15. 

- Also due today:  Review essay topic proposal:

Write me a memo, proposing a topic for your review essay.  What novel would you like to review? Tell me why you're interested, and what makes you qualified to write a review of this particular novel?  That is, what is your personal connection to the book or subject matter? Include a working title for your review essay, and include at least one- or two-hundred words of your reflections and commentary on the novel. 

 

Week 7 (Tues Oct 6; Thurs Oct 8)

Tuesday:  Discussion of Errol Morris's film. 

Thurs:  Review for exam 1. 

 

Week 8 (Tues Oct 13; Thurs Oct 15)

Tuesday:  FALL BREAK.  No class.  

 

Thursday:  Exam 1. 

 

Week 9 (Tues Oct 20; Thurs Oct 22)

Tues:  Begin reading Pynchon.

Thurs:  Read through chapter 14 (through p255). 

 

Week 10 (Tues Oct 27; Thurs Oct 29)

Tuesday:  Finish Pynchon. 

Thursday:  Draft of your review essay due.  Bring 3 copies of the draft to class, for a workshop. 

 

Week 11 (Tues Nov 3; Thurs Nov 5)

Tuesday:  Read Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story through p111. 

Thursday:  Read Shteyngart through p224.

 

Week 12 (Tues Nov 10; Thurs Nov 12)

Tuesday:  Finish Shteyngart. 

 

Thursday: 

Revision of your review essay is due. 

 

Taylor will present on Sylvia Plath.  Read the following poems by Plath:

- "Daddy" www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178960

- "Metamorphosis" p106; "The Death of Mythmaking" p193; "Stars Over Dordogne" p204; "Fever 103" p210, in the "Poetry" anthology. 

Also read "After Lorca" by Ted Hughes, p212; Hughes was Plath's husband.

 

Grace will present on these three, thematically-related poems:

- "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood, p247

- "A Poet of Our Climate" by Katha Pollitt, p286

- "Bitch" by Caroline Kizer, p307 

 

Week 13 (Tues Nov 17; Thurs 19)

Tuesday:

Jeffrey will present on Hart Crane's poem "At Melville's Tomb" p64. 

Nathan will present on W.S. Merwin.  Read the following poems by Merwin, in the anthology:

- "After the Alphabets" p347; "Search Party" p391; "To Luck" p477; "Lament for the Makers" p482. 

Also read this poem by Merwin, online:  "For a Coming Extinction." 

 

Thursday:

Kasey will present on Wallace Stevens.  Read the following poems by Stevens, in the anthology:

- "Sunday Morning" p25; "Anecdote of the Jar" p42; "The Snow Man" p47; "The Ultimate Poem is Abstract" p142. 

Also read this Stevens poem online:  "The Emperor of Ice Cream." 

 

Week 14 (Tues Nov 24; Thurs Nov 26)

Tuesday:  More poems. 

Lucas presents a grab bag of postmodern (?) poems:

- "A Younger Poet" by Schjeldahl, p253.

- "Against Poetry" by Gilbert, p343.

- "Elegy" by Gilbert, p265. 

- "a not so good night in the San Pedro of the world" by Bukowski, p403. 

 

Thursday:  Class cancelled for Thanksgiving holiday. 

 

Week 15 (Tues Dec 1; Thurs Dec 3)

Tuesday:  Yet more poems. 

Thursday:  Review for exam 2. 

 

            Final exam period:  Exam 2, Tuesday, December 8, 8-10am