On the day following our film viewing, I have asked you to select any 5 pages from Kenneth Burke's "Equipment for Living," which is a chapter out of his longer book entitled The Philosophy of Literary Form. We'll use your pages as a critical lens onto our film to do these things:
- try to understand documentary literature as Burke's "equipments" for living
- try to understand documentary literature as Burke's "sociological critique"
- try to consider the topoi that influenced the film
- try to consider the various meanings of "invention" in the film.
Please come prepared to discuss at least one of these things, using your 5 selected pages as a guide.
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4/20/12: Reading Preparation for Phelan's "Voice" and Tze Chun's Children of Invention
In advance of the day we view the film, please read through Tze Chun's Director's Statement, for insight into his exigence in creating the film.
Please also read our excerpt from Phelan's article entitled "The Concept of Voice: Some Rhetorical Principles." Phelan offers a definition of voice contrived from four interrelated principles about language in use (44-48). As you view the film, I'd like you to keep your eyes and ears open, so that you can test all four parts of his definition. Can we justify them according to our understanding of "voice" in the film?
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4/16-4/18/12: Reading Preparation for Quinn's Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
For our first discussion day, please work through the following questions prior to class:
- Unlike our other readings this semester, Ishmael is pure fiction, not based in the author's personal, polemical or journalistic experiences, and thus a bit harder to justify as "documentary." However, it makes an interesting argument about ethics and sustainability, and it is argued as a Socratic dialogue, delivered through a character named "Ishmael." What could be the significance of naming the main character that way? And why do you think Quinn has him deliver his ethical philosophy via "Socratic dialogue"? Feel free to use our weblinks at right (especially the OED, Literature Criticism Online, and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) to search for the definitions or histories of "Ishmael" and "Socratic dialogue." There may also be a viable Wikipedia article on "Socratic dialogue." Though not very thorough, the last time I checked it, it was reliably sourced.
- Much of the novel involves Ishmael's exchanges with the narrator, otherwise known as Ishmael's pupil. In each exchange, Ishmael is encouraging the narrator to deconstruct, step by step, his own belief system. Ishmael then presents him with an alternative way of understanding the history of humankind. As you read each chapter for today's class, note or mark or underline the pieces of the narrator's belief system as it begins to unfold, and pieces of Ishmael's philosophy that he offers in response. You should end up with a very long list.
- In each chapter, what beliefs are being defined, redefined, called into question? What values are being challenged and what alternatives are given in their place?
- How does the novel relate mythology to sustainability?
Quiz on Ishmael will be given on Wednesday, 4/18/12.
For our second discussion day, please work through the following questions prior to class:
- Take some time to browse Cultural Survival. What is this site about? What organization does it represent, or--if not an organization--what paradigm does it hope to promote, and how will it go about promoting that paradigm?
- Throughout the novel, what is the difference--for Ishmael--between evaluative “good” and ethical “good”?
- To a certain extent, any of the below concepts can help us explain the situation of Ishmael. Select any three concepts and be prepared to discuss how, focusing on a single chapter:
- Appeals to time
- Catharsis
- Distant narrator
- Narrative ethic
- Pragmatism
- Audience construction
- Ideological critique
- Exigence
- Anti-sentimentalism
Have fun with this!
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4/9-4/11/12: Reading Preparation for Sinclair's The Jungle: Uncensored Edition
Quiz on "pragmatism" and "anti-sentimentalism" (using Maggie and The Jungle) will be given on Monday, 4/9/12 (postponed from Friday 4/6/12).
For our first discussion day, please work through the following questions prior to class:
For our second discussion day, work through the following questions:
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4/4/12-4/6/12: Reading Preparation for Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
For our first discussion day, please consider the following prior to class:
For our second discussion day, I invite you to browse Kay Davis' brief archive of the photography of social reformer Jacob Riis and take some time to view the slideshows and displays. Riis published his images of tenement living and immigrant populations quite widely. As we are reading some of the short commentaries in the Norton Critical Edition of Maggie, consider the following:
We may have a quiz on this day, following the concept presentation on "Pragmatism."
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4/2/12: Reading Preparation for Wilson's Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black and Campbell's "Agency: Promiscuous and Protean"
Folks, first of all, we are only reading part of Campbell's article: pages 3, 8-14. Of course, you are welcome to read the entire article, but we'll only focus on those pages.
Now, let's say that all of us are archival researchers, and Our Nig is an archive. There are several different methods we might use to examine this archive (a.k.a., "read this text") for critical assumptions about class, gender, and race. I'd like you to pick any 1 of the following 3 methods, and be ready to discuss your findings during class:
Method 1: Read “chronology I” in the beginning of Our Nig (pp. vii-xvii); count the number of moves, abandonments, or instances of neglect that the author, Harriet Wilson, experiences in the course of this timeline. Look closely at the causes, consequences, and frequency of events to see what patterns you can see. For example, did those events happen every year or every 10 years, and did certain events happen at certain intervals of time?
Method 2: Look up 2 unfamiliar terms in Our Nig (they can be familiar words that are used in an unfamiliar way in the book) in the Oxford English Dictionary Online and provide your own brief definition of each term that helps us to understand how it is used in the context of a specific passage in the story. Be sure to pick terms that you think have some significance to the narration.
Method 3: Study the title page of the original text (this is on p. 1 in our Penguin Classics edition, after the page that says "Note on the Text"). Allow yourself some time to simply study all of its contents. Do a close reading of all the words on the page, reading for literal meaning, as well as figurative or ironic meaning. Discuss the results and describe how you think they are significant to your reading of the book.
Harriet Wilson does not necessarily call this novel "autobiography," although she does call it "autobiographical," and we could probably make a case for the ways it reflects her own experiences. In order to do that, we have to first consider Pascal's understanding of "autobiography." What makes an autobiography, and/or what are the characteristics of an autobiographical text? See if you can compile as thorough a list as possible, based on your reading of Pascal's article. Be sure to read each section of the article, so that you don't miss what might be an important characteristic.
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3/28/12: Reading Preparation for Wells-Barnett's "Lynch-Law"
Hello, everyone. We will have our first quiz of the semester during today's class, and the best way to prepare is to simply take some time to work through these questions in advance.
In keeping with our goal of reading and studying documentary literature as situations to be negotiated, I'd like to think back to Killingsworth's "Rhetorical Situation" and Killingsworth's "Appeals to Time" to help us read Wells-Barnett's "Lynch-Law" in more critical depth. So, as you prepare for Wednesday's quiz and discussion, consider the following:
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3/26/12: Reading Preparation for Adams' "Letters to John" and Killingsworth's "Appeals to Time"
Today, we are reading three well-known letters written by Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams, during one of their periods of separation in the American Revolution. If you are curious, you can browse an online archive of all of the letters that Abigail wrote to John over a 35-year period. We are also reading a theoretical essay about making appeals to time. Which of Killingsworth's appeals might be at work in the way we interpret Adams' "Absolute Power Over Wives" or "Man Is a Dangerous Creature": rhetoric of crisis; rhetoric of forward motion; or resisting progress? What difference does this make for Adams and for us?
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3/21/12: Discussion Questions for Class on Blog (Satrapi, Schirato and Webb)
Hello, everyone. Class is on the blog today! We are focusing primarily on Satrapi pages 71-153, but you may discuss earlier pages in the novel.
To participate, you will compose a response to only one of the prompts below, and then you will comment on each other's responses. Please write as many comments as you can. By "as many comments as you can," I mean that -- for 100 minutes -- I'd like you to offer engaged responses, and even push the conversation in new directions. Depending on how you engage, this may result in one long comment, or several shorter comments.
As promised, I will count your response as one of your three weekly posts. I highly recommend that you think about the response before class time begins; in fact, you may even post your response to the prompt before today's class, if you wish. That way, you can use your full 100 minutes to "converse" on the blog.
Please select only one of these prompts to try to respond to in a post:
Have fun with this!
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3/19/12: Reading Preparation for Satrapi's Persepolis andMcCloud's "Vocabulary of Comics" Schirato and Webb's "Visual Narratives"
I hope you enjoy reading Marjane Satrapi's comic-memoir! We will only be reading the first half (pp. 1-153), chronicling her childhood in Tehran, prior to leaving for Vienna at age 14, and we will take two class days for discussion. Please reread Schirato and Webb's "Visual Narratives," as well. Here are our discussion questions for Monday (in addition to your own questions and curiosities):
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3/9/12: Discussion Questions for Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze and Schirato and Webb's "Visual Narratives"
In preparation for Friday's film viewing, feel free to review the film site and some of the other information about Yung Chang's subjects -- Bo Yu and Yu Shui -- as well as the continuing plight of Yu Shui's family. You'll also find Yung Chang's director's statement and other projects. We will be using Schirato and Webb's essay as an analytic lens onto the film, so my suggestion is that you would focus on their concepts of "intertext" and also on the ways they define narration. Here are our discussion questions for Friday:
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3/7/12: Reading Preparation for Asch's "In Search of America" and Booth's "Types of Narration" and "Morality of Narration"
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4/9-4/11/12: Reading Preparation for Sinclair's The Jungle: Uncensored Edition
Quiz on "pragmatism" and "anti-sentimentalism" (using Maggie and The Jungle) will be given on Monday, 4/9/12 (postponed from Friday 4/6/12).
For our first discussion day, please work through the following questions prior to class:
- Based on your reading of Maggie and the beginning chapters of The Jungle, what defines a “pragmatic” lens to literature? In other words, how does one read “pragmatically”?
- If we want to pose a theory that The Jungle is a pragmatic novel, what questions could it be allowing us to ask (or answer)?
- Part of Sinclair's narrative strategy in this novel is to include motifs of noise (industrialization), and to juxtapose these motifs with the human condition. As you read these early chapters, what strikes you about this juxtaposition? What motifs do you notice, and how do they either promote, swallow up, or transform Sinclair's characters?
- Another of Sinclair's narrative strategies is to show how some ideologies have anti-ideological functions, so that readers can know how and where to act on them. As you read these early chapters, what do you notice about particular ideologies that guide the characters--socially, intellectually, or politically? What could be, or what seem to be, their anti-ideological functions?
For our second discussion day, work through the following questions:
- True or false (according to The Jungle): experience can change belief.
- True or false (according to The Jungle): people are absolute victims of their environment.
- Based on the way the novel ends, do you think Sinclair would say that pragmatism can change history, or that it can make history into a usable past?
- Based on the way the novel ends, do you think Sinclair would say that anti-sentimentalism serves the novel as a narrative strategy, or that it serves the novel as a philosophy (presumably shared by writer and readers)?
- What do ideological critique and pragmatism have to gain from each other (if anything)?
- On pages viii and xii, the editor of this Uncensored edition says that “if we do not empathize with the people being crushed by the system, we will be less likely to want to change that system” (xii). Do you agree with this statement about empathy, and that Sinclair has achieved that through his writing?
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4/4/12-4/6/12: Reading Preparation for Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
For our first discussion day, please consider the following prior to class:
- Crane's exigence (while we cannot know what this is for certain, we can make educated guesses, based on the text, the text's agents, and the "Preface" on pp. xi-xii).
- Who are the agents in the novel and/or what is the role of agency in the novel? Or, what kind of agency does the novel promote?
- How does the novel promote, demonstrate, or resist "uplift" (note that each of these three terms is quite different)?
- I'll define these terms in more depth, but if you were to locate a working definition of "pragmatism" or "realism" in the Oxford English Dictionary Online, in what ways do these definitions fit or not fit Crane's novel?
- Your favorite scene from the novel.
- The scene in the novel that bothered you the most!
For our second discussion day, I invite you to browse Kay Davis' brief archive of the photography of social reformer Jacob Riis and take some time to view the slideshows and displays. Riis published his images of tenement living and immigrant populations quite widely. As we are reading some of the short commentaries in the Norton Critical Edition of Maggie, consider the following:
- In one of the commentaries, Gullason argues that Jacob Riis actually influenced Stephen Crane's construction of psychological conflict in Maggie (p. 103). How could some of these images by Riis support Gullason's theory?
- In another commentary, Pizer argues that Crane's novel actually complicates the category of naturalistic fiction, rather than represents it (p. 186). Again, how could some of these images by Riis support Pizer's theory?
We may have a quiz on this day, following the concept presentation on "Pragmatism."
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4/2/12: Reading Preparation for Wilson's Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black and Campbell's "Agency: Promiscuous and Protean"
Folks, first of all, we are only reading part of Campbell's article: pages 3, 8-14. Of course, you are welcome to read the entire article, but we'll only focus on those pages.
Now, let's say that all of us are archival researchers, and Our Nig is an archive. There are several different methods we might use to examine this archive (a.k.a., "read this text") for critical assumptions about class, gender, and race. I'd like you to pick any 1 of the following 3 methods, and be ready to discuss your findings during class:
Method 1: Read “chronology I” in the beginning of Our Nig (pp. vii-xvii); count the number of moves, abandonments, or instances of neglect that the author, Harriet Wilson, experiences in the course of this timeline. Look closely at the causes, consequences, and frequency of events to see what patterns you can see. For example, did those events happen every year or every 10 years, and did certain events happen at certain intervals of time?
Method 2: Look up 2 unfamiliar terms in Our Nig (they can be familiar words that are used in an unfamiliar way in the book) in the Oxford English Dictionary Online and provide your own brief definition of each term that helps us to understand how it is used in the context of a specific passage in the story. Be sure to pick terms that you think have some significance to the narration.
Method 3: Study the title page of the original text (this is on p. 1 in our Penguin Classics edition, after the page that says "Note on the Text"). Allow yourself some time to simply study all of its contents. Do a close reading of all the words on the page, reading for literal meaning, as well as figurative or ironic meaning. Discuss the results and describe how you think they are significant to your reading of the book.
---------------------
3/30/12: Reading Preparation for Wilson's Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black and Pascal's "What is an Autobiography?"
Harriet Wilson does not necessarily call this novel "autobiography," although she does call it "autobiographical," and we could probably make a case for the ways it reflects her own experiences. In order to do that, we have to first consider Pascal's understanding of "autobiography." What makes an autobiography, and/or what are the characteristics of an autobiographical text? See if you can compile as thorough a list as possible, based on your reading of Pascal's article. Be sure to read each section of the article, so that you don't miss what might be an important characteristic.
---------------------
3/28/12: Reading Preparation for Wells-Barnett's "Lynch-Law"
Hello, everyone. We will have our first quiz of the semester during today's class, and the best way to prepare is to simply take some time to work through these questions in advance.
In keeping with our goal of reading and studying documentary literature as situations to be negotiated, I'd like to think back to Killingsworth's "Rhetorical Situation" and Killingsworth's "Appeals to Time" to help us read Wells-Barnett's "Lynch-Law" in more critical depth. So, as you prepare for Wednesday's quiz and discussion, consider the following:
- What is, or could be, Wells-Barnett's exigence? Is this article an argument to overturn the inequalities of the sexes or races? Or, is it an argument to promote civic identity or collective social consciousness?
- What are the topoi (or commonplaces, or common ways of thinking that characterize the time and place in which she writes)? In other words, how does she argue for her claim or use evidence? Is it to maintain a status quo? Or does she make appeals to history and to cause (i.e., based on what we know about X or Y, this is why lynching must stop)?
- How does she make appeals to time, or to timeliness?
- Do you notice appeals to logos (shared logic, or shared values)? Does she appeal to her reader's ability to think socially and pragmatically? Or do you think she appeals to her reader's ability to promote justice over expediency?
- Do you notice appeals to pathos? Does she position her readers as participants in cultural and national identity? Or does she position them as trendsetters of cultural and national identity? Or do you think she positions them as antagonists of cultural and national identity?
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3/26/12: Reading Preparation for Adams' "Letters to John" and Killingsworth's "Appeals to Time"
Today, we are reading three well-known letters written by Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams, during one of their periods of separation in the American Revolution. If you are curious, you can browse an online archive of all of the letters that Abigail wrote to John over a 35-year period. We are also reading a theoretical essay about making appeals to time. Which of Killingsworth's appeals might be at work in the way we interpret Adams' "Absolute Power Over Wives" or "Man Is a Dangerous Creature": rhetoric of crisis; rhetoric of forward motion; or resisting progress? What difference does this make for Adams and for us?
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3/21/12: Discussion Questions for Class on Blog (Satrapi, Schirato and Webb)
Hello, everyone. Class is on the blog today! We are focusing primarily on Satrapi pages 71-153, but you may discuss earlier pages in the novel.
To participate, you will compose a response to only one of the prompts below, and then you will comment on each other's responses. Please write as many comments as you can. By "as many comments as you can," I mean that -- for 100 minutes -- I'd like you to offer engaged responses, and even push the conversation in new directions. Depending on how you engage, this may result in one long comment, or several shorter comments.
As promised, I will count your response as one of your three weekly posts. I highly recommend that you think about the response before class time begins; in fact, you may even post your response to the prompt before today's class, if you wish. That way, you can use your full 100 minutes to "converse" on the blog.
Please select only one of these prompts to try to respond to in a post:
- During Monday's class discussion, we considered the idea that the dual narration in Persepolis actually contradicts itself, i.e., where the child Marji and the adult Satrapi have conflicting perspectives that both show up in the same scene. This in turn may obscure the reader's ability to moralize, or make moral judgments about the text. Can you find other places in the novel where this occurs? Select a chapter or scene or a cluster of panels and discuss how they contradict and/or how that makes moralizing obscure.
- During Monday's class discussion, we considered the idea that part of Satrapi's narrative ethic may be finding a balance between representing a whole culture (Iranians/Persians) and representing an individual (Marji). Can you locate places in the novel where this balance is achieved successfully, or not achieved successfully? Select a chapter or scene or a cluster of panels and discuss.
- The question came up about time, and whether Schirato and Webb argue that single images can or cannot show the passing of time the way that cartoons, comics, and moving images can show it. Ultimately, they draw on the claims of another theorist, W.J.T. Mitchell, to say that "[t]ime, in short, cannot be 'told' in visual texts or even in narrative pictures; we can only infer it from the structure of the visual text, and the arrangement of its parts" (Mitchell 100; as qtd. in Schirato and Webb 87). Then they go on to discuss the various ways that readers might "infer time" from single images. Can you find and discuss an instance of where you, as a reader, were made to infer time passing in Persepolis? Or culture passing? Or ideology passing? In other words, can you find and discuss a single frame in Satrapi's comic where you think that the passing of time, culture, or ideology is successfully achieved? What makes it so successful?
- So far, we have studied or discussed three different narratives: Nathan Asch narrated a cultural migration "In Search of America"; Yung Chang narrated a kind of enculturation from old to new China in Up the Yangtze; and Marjane Satrapi narrates a kind of cultural revolution in which she and her family are deeply involved in Persepolis. Why do you think Satrapi chose comics (icons) to narrate this cultural revolution? Schirato and Webb's theory in "Visual Narratives" is that visual narratives are more effective for demonstrating how all narratives are informed by our knowledge of other everyday genres (94), are social institutions (83), are ways of critique (83), or are intertexts (91). Which of these aspects of visual narratives could have influenced Satrapi's decision to tell the story in comic form? Select a chapter or scene or a cluster of panels and discuss.
Have fun with this!
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3/19/12: Reading Preparation for Satrapi's Persepolis and
I hope you enjoy reading Marjane Satrapi's comic-memoir! We will only be reading the first half (pp. 1-153), chronicling her childhood in Tehran, prior to leaving for Vienna at age 14, and we will take two class days for discussion. Please reread Schirato and Webb's "Visual Narratives," as well. Here are our discussion questions for Monday (in addition to your own questions and curiosities):
- the role(s) of narration. In other words, when do you find yourself becoming more or less aware of "Marji"? Of Satrapi? What 3 aspects of Booth’s narration theory are represented in the way Satrapi narrates the chapter?
- the role of "intertext." In other words, in how many ways can this term -- "intertext" -- serve us in analyzing Persepolis? Do you think it is possible to argue for this comic-memoir as intertextual, according to Schirato and Webb's discussion of the term?
- the limitations of comic identification. In other words, what are both the limitations and the benefits of identifying with a comic character? Which characters in the memoir are more or less identifiable?
- her most provocative use of drawn symbols. In other words, how does Satrapi "draw" liberation, perplexity, religious tension, loss, grief, coming-of-age, etc.?
- Satrapi's narrative ethic. What is it, and in what chapters, panels, or details do you see it most clearly?
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3/9/12: Discussion Questions for Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze and Schirato and Webb's "Visual Narratives"
In preparation for Friday's film viewing, feel free to review the film site and some of the other information about Yung Chang's subjects -- Bo Yu and Yu Shui -- as well as the continuing plight of Yu Shui's family. You'll also find Yung Chang's director's statement and other projects. We will be using Schirato and Webb's essay as an analytic lens onto the film, so my suggestion is that you would focus on their concepts of "intertext" and also on the ways they define narration. Here are our discussion questions for Friday:
- In how many ways can this term -- "intertext" -- serve us if we wanted to understand the rhetorical situation of the film? In other words, how does "intertext" apply to this film?
- How does Schirato and Webb's definition of "narration" differ from Booth's? According to either definition, how would you describe the narrator or narration of the film?
- What choices do you think that Yung Chang made well in telling this migration story? In other words, what did you find persuasive, or not persuasive? But also, what ethical decisions do you think he had to make?
- In what scenes did you begin to see more or less of the narrator? Is there more than one narrator?
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3/7/12: Reading Preparation for Asch's "In Search of America" and Booth's "Types of Narration" and "Morality of Narration"
- Select one of Asch's scenes and be prepared to (1) diagram, model, or somehow visually depict the rhetorical situation of that scene (Killingsworth pp. 26-28) or (2) discuss at least 3 aspects of Booth’s narration theory that are represented in the way Asch narrates the scene.
- What is Asch’s exigence? (see Killingsworth p. 26-27)
- What kind of narrator is Asch? (see Booth) How could his narrative style be responding to certain challenges of narrating migration? What do you think Booth would say those challenges are?
