Week of December 1 – December 5th

Please turn in your final essays (#3) by the end of the day on December 5th via email!

For Monday, December 1st, please read: Shelley Jackson’s The Body & Stuart Moulthrop’s “Pax”

For EXTRA CREDIT: please blog a response on each of the above readings. Describe your reading experience: 1) how did you navigate through the story? 2) what, if any, is your understanding of the main theme or the “story” being told? 3) how it is similar to or different from any of the other readings we’ve done for this class? 4) After reading these texts, what is your understanding of what the author is trying to suggest about the body (both via content of narrative and via the way the story is delivered)?

For Wednesday, December 3rd, please read: Chapter 1: “Lord Burleigh’s Kiss” (p. 13-26) from Murray, Janet H. (1997) Hamlet and the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. This reading will be made available to you via handouts on Monday, the 1st.

Friday, December 5th: FINAL ESSAYS ARE DUE by the end of the day via email!

Final Essay (#3)

For your final essay, you will be comparing/contrasting two of the class readings. Your specific topic is your choice, but you will want to be sure that you make an argument. You could, for example, focus on a number of things, from how the body is portrayed in each reading (and what these portrayals suggest about attitudes or thoughts towards the body) to a particular theme (of human desire to create a sort of Utopia or how the idea of love is represented). You want to choose a topic that is specific enough to fully explore and will be focusing on the similarities and differences between how the two texts you choose deal with your topic or theme. You could also focus on literary style – and the ways in which each of your chosen texts uses style to enrich content and/or more fully engage the reader.

Please write a paragraph or two that proposes your topic and how you intend to approach it by Monday, November 17th. You can post here on this blog or turn in to me in class. Your proposal will count as a response grade.

November 3rd – 7th

For Wednesday, Nov. 5th, BRING FINAL ESSAY # 2 to class!!

Also, please read and respond to the following (blog response to questions due by Monday, November 10th):

Begin reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (can also be found online at http://www.huxley.net/bnw/index.html):

Discuss some of the similarities and dissimilarities between Frankenstein and Brave New World. DO NOT simply compare each and summarize the two – ANALYZE and DISCUSS the two in relationship to each other (talk about WHY you think the two texts might be similar or different and what the texts might be trying to do, suggest, or imply). Use examples and/or quotes from the text to illustrate your points!

Some topics/ideas you might think and write about are:

1) the creation of a “being” versus the conditioning of a being – what’s the difference, in terms of the impact each has on the “being” itself and/or the society in which such a being is being created or “conditioned”?

2) What were the goals of each creator/controller (Dr. Frankenstein’s goals versus Mustapha Mond (the World Controller in Brave New World) in their attempts to create another being versus condition other beings? Make sure you reference the text.

3) How did these concepts (of creation and conditioning) forsee any of what is happening in digital media technology today? MAKE SURE YOU REFERENCE BOTH TEXTS.

4) Compare what each text implies or suggests about human “feelings” and independent thinking. Do you think it is important to either feel or think independently in either of these two texts? Why or why not?

5) In Frankenstein, everyone is miserable; in Brave New World, supposedly, “everybody’s happy.” What does “happy” mean in Brave New World? Is it really an emotion? And how does that experience of happiness in Brave New World compare to the misery both Dr. Frankenstein and the monster feel?

6) In Frankenstein, the “monster” is feared and hated because he’s not at all human-like. Conversely, in Brave New World, it is “John the Savage” (and all from whence he came) that are feared and hated because they are TOO human. What do you make of this radical narrative difference? And which, in your opinion, more closely resembles our current societal fears and perceptions (and why, do you think?)?

For Friday, November 7th: please read up to Chapter 5.  (http://huxley.net/bnw/two.html).

For Monday, November 10th: please read up to Chapter 10.(http://huxley.net/bnw/two.html).

For Wednesday, November 12th, please read up to Chapter 14.

Friday, November 14th, instead of meeting in class, please use that time to work on your last essay.

On Monday, November 17th, you should come into class with a full paragraph or two that describes how you plan to approach your last essay. (Could even be a rough draft version of your final paper’s first two paragraphs). Also, please finish reading Brave New World, so we can wrap up discussion of the book.

Response Assignment #6

Your draft Essay #2 is due on Monday, October 24th. Please bring three copies to class with you; I will assign peer review groups in class on Monday (tell you who to give your essay to).

By Monday, October 24th: Read Frankenstein up to Chapter 8 (which you should be up to by Friday, anyway).

By Wednesday, October 26th: Read Frankenstein up to Chapter 16.

For your blog response, due by NEXT WEDNESDAY (Oct. 29th), please consider some of the following questions:

1. Discuss Dr. Frankenstein’s obsession with creating another being as it relates to contemporary issues of science and technology today. What parallels seem to exist between today’s reality and this fictional story? What are the parallel ethical issues? Provide examples and quotes.

2. In what ways does the monster exemplify or seem to describe the contemporary idea of the cyborg? Is the monster an early literary version of the cyborg? Why or why not? Provide examples and quotes.

For Friday, October 31st: please have the rest of Frankenstein read; also, have your comments ready to hand back to your peers.

Monday, November 3rd: NO CLASS; Final ESSAY # 2 papers due IN CLASS ON WEDNESDAY, November 5th!

Week of October 13-17th

Hi folks – For Wednesday, October 15th, please continue reading Winterson’s Written on the Body. By Friday, you should have finished reading the book. Also, for Wednesday’s class, please write a blog response that addresses any theme, narrative method or style that particularly draws your attention. This is a free-writing exercise, so I am not posting any particular questions. If you’d like, write a sort of stream-of-consciousness response. Feel free to have fun with it, too . . . be creative . . . ).

Response Assignment # 4

Hi folks — here’s the schedule of reading for next week (October 6-10), along with blog response questions:

By Monday, 10/6, please finish reading The Shawl (and see questions below for blog response).

By Wednesday, 10/8: Read up to page 55 in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body.

By Friday, 10/10: Read up to page 111 in Written on the Body (up to second section, “The Cells, Tissues, Systems and Cavities of the Body”)

For Monday, 10/6, please respond to any one of the following questions (or you may discuss anything else that takes your attention):

1. Why doesn’t Rosa run to protect Magda at the end?  Is it because she fears death?  Because she is traumatized?  Because she is physically exhausted?
2. What do we make of Magda’s physical appearance?
3. What is the significance of the shawl?
4. Has Rosa’s opinion of Stella changed since they were in the concentration camp?  How do we know?  What has changed?
5. What is the significance of Rosa’s writing letters in different languages?
6. Why does Rosa constantly tell Persky, “Your Warsaw isn’t my Warsaw”?
7. Why is Rosa so reluctant to participate in Dr. Tree’s study?
8. What is the significance of Ozick’s detailed description of Miami’s hot night (pp. 45-50)?
9. Why is Rosa obsessed with finding her underwear?  What might it represent?
10. What is the significance of the WWII memories Rosa tries to share with her customers, especially the tram car scene (pp. 66-69)?  Why does Rosa say, “I became like the woman with the lettuce” (69)?

Reading & Assignments for 9/29 – 10/6

Here’s the schedule for next week:

Monday, 9/29: Essay # 1 peer reviews DUE – Peer Review Workshop (bring comments for colleague’s drafts to class for peer review workshop) / Finish reading Things Fall Apart.

Wednesday, 10/1: Read Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl (first third of book) – come in with at least one passage that you would like to discuss further in class (that you were particularly drawn to)

Friday, 10/3: Read The Shawl (second third)

Your FINAL PAPER will be due on Monday, October 6th. Please turn in your peer reviews, the draft on which I provided feedback, along with your final paper. Also, read the rest of The Shawl and be prepared to discuss in class.

Fall for the Book, Essay Draft, & Upcoming Assignments

For Friday, you should be up to Chapter 5 in Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. I’m pushing the due date back to Wednesday, September 24th. Please bring in enough copies of your essay draft to give your peer reviewers, as well as me.

By Wednesday, you should also have read up to Chapter 10 in Things Fall Apart and be prepared to discuss the book in class. There is no blog response due next week, but I do expect you to be prepared for class discussion of the book.

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY:

For those who go to any of the Fall for the Book festival events next week and write a thoughtful response to the reading or event (here on blog), I’ll give extra credit to you (equal to one blog response). Most notably, the next author we are reading, Chinua Achebe, will be honored on Monday, September 22nd between 10-11 a.m. at the Johnson Center Cinema; he will also be reading from his book, Things Fall Apart, which we are currently reading on Monday, September 22nd at 7:30 p.m. The details of this reading/event are below:

Mon, Sep 22, 7:30pm – 9:00pm

Concert Hall, Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (map)

DescriptionNigerian novelist, poet and critic Chinua Achebe accepts the 2008 Mason Award, celebrating an author whose body of work has made extraordinary contributions to bringing literature to a wide reading public. The author also reads from Things Fall Apart, the most widely read and perhaps most profoundly influential African novel, on the 50th anniversary of its publication. Sponsored by Mason’s Office of University Life.

For week of Sept 15-19th

This week, there’s no blog response, but here’s the reading schedule (below). Also note, on Wednesday, Sept 17th, we’ll be meeting at Fenwick Library (outside).

For Monday, Sept 15th: please finish reading the poems from Friday & be sure to respond to the blog response (below) by Monday morning at 7:30 a.m.

For Wednesday, Sept 17th: meet us at Fenwick Library! (do NOT go to classroom first)

For Friday, Sept 19th: Read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (Chapts 1-5)

Response Assignment # 3

Essay # 1 assignment details can be found here (or click on link at top of blog). Please email me with questions. Also — see reading/response assignment for this week below.

For Wednesday, please read:

• Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market” (come prepared to discuss in class)
• Judith Cofer – “Beans: An Apologia For Not Loving To Cook” (handout) & “The Story of My Body” (emailed to you)

For Friday, please read:

• Mora, Pat. “Legal Alien” & “La Migra”
• Morales, Aurora Levins. “Child of the Americas” (emailed to you)

For this blog response, please discuss the ways in which Cofer, Mora, and Morales explore the relationships between ethnicity and the body within their writing. This is a free-writing exercise, so there are no particular questions to respond to, but be sure to take note of any similarities and/or differences, whether in theme, context, or style. Compare and contrast these pieces of work (and be sure to touch upon at least two of the four pieces) while writing your response.