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Fall, 2000 | |
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English 378 |
Rice 30, (440) 445-8576 |
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TTh, 3:00-4:15 |
Office hours: M, 11:00-12:15 |
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King 235 |
WF, 3:30-4:30 |
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E-mail: David.Young@oberlin.edu |
Texts:
English 378 Course Packet, available from English Department Office, Rice 130. Note: You need this immediately.
This course is a highly selective survey of the ways in which literature has engaged the problem of the human relation to the natural world. To the extent that concepts of wilderness and the wild have been used to represent this relation as an opposition, or a tension, various treatments of "wilderness" in relation to "civilization," and of "nature" in relation to "culture" will be our particular focus of study. The first half of the course explores the European context, beginning in antiquity and second half explores the American context, focusing on the American reaction to the New World wilderness and finishing in the present. I've renamed the course "American" rather than "Human" Imagination this semester, so as to acknowledge our opportunity to take advantage of the Allen Art Museum's show "Changing Visions of the North American Landscape" and the interdisciplinary forum on landscape -- "Are We There Yet?" -- scheduled for Nov. 3-5.
To get broad coverage, we'll need to maintain a brisk pace and accept a necessarily sketchy treatment of works and issues that could clearly occupy us at more length. One way to introduce depth into all this breadth is for you to develop your own plan for what you would particularly like to get out of the course. I will divide you into two groups, with rotating responsibilities, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for "position papers," responses to the reading that we will use to shape and focus our discussion. From those papers, four in each half of the course, you may wish to evolve your longer "projects" for the first and second half. I use the term "project" to cover the norm -- an 8-10 page paper treating some aspect of our work for that half of the course in depth -- and to admit exceptions, substantial pieces of writing (personal essay, short story, group of poems) and other projects that depart from the norm but produce an equivalent response in terms of depth, concentration and educational value. Such exceptions need to be negotiated and agreed upon in advance with me. You need to be thinking ahead to these projects/papers as you go, and you are urged to consult with me about them as they take shape, so that we can agree on their scope, focus, methodology, etc. A prospectus is due one week ahead of the actual date the paper/ project is due. This can be as substantial as a first draft or as brief as an outline, but it should help ensure that we both understand the nature and value of what you propose to do. You can also link your two projects together, if you wish, to make one large enterprise.
Schedule of Assignments:
Tues. Sept. 5: Introductory
Thurs. Sept. 7: Oelschlager, The Idea of Wilderness, Chapter 1, pp. 1-67. (In course packet.)
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Tues. Sept. 12: Antiquity: Gilgamesh, sections 1 and & 2. Harrison, Forests: the shadow of civilization, ix-xi, 1-18 (course packet). First position paper for Tuesday group.
Thurs. Sept. 14: Finish Gilgamesh. including Introduction. Oelschlager, Chapter 2, 68-73 (course packet). First position paper for Thursday group.
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Tues. Sept. 19: The Greeks, the Romans, and the Middle Ages. Forests, 19-81 (course packet). Gawain, the first two "fitts." 2nd pos. paper.
Thurs. Sept. 21: Gawain, The third and fourth fitts. Oelschlager, 89-96 (course packet) 2nd pos. paper.
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Tues. Sept. 26: The Enlightenment and Romanticism. Forests, 107-133 and Oelschlager, 89-96. Susan Stewart, "The Forest" (course packet) 3rd pos. paper.
Thurs. Sept. 28: Edmund Burke, selections from "On the Sublime." Blake, "The Tyger," "London" (course packet) 3rd pos, paper
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Tues. Oct. 3: The Wordsworths. William, "Lines Composed..." and the selection from The Prelude. Dorothy, journal selections. (course packet) 4th pos. paper.
Thurs. Oct. 5: Percy B. Shelley, "Mont Blanc," and Keats, "To Autumn" (course packet) 4th pos. paper. First half project descriptions due.
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Tues. Oct. 10: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
Thurs. Oct. 12: Forests, 133-144.
FIRST HALF PROJECTS ARE DUE BY FRIDAY, OCT. 13, 4:30 p.m.
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F A L L B R E A K
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Tues. Oct. 24: Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, Prologue and first two chapters (course packet)
Thurs. Oct. 26: David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, first two chapters (course packet)
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Tues. Oct. 31: Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" (course packet). 5th pos. paper.
Thurs. Nov. 2: Preparation for interdisciplinary symposium on Saturday, Nov. 4. Selections from Lubin, Kaza, Buell, Sherman and Young will be read aloud and discussed by class members who have volunteered, in teams of two, to research the books of each panelist. This in lieu of a 5th position paper for the Thursday group.
Be sure to reserve that Saturday, Nov. 4, for your participation in the symposium and the workshops that will be held. That is part of your obligation to the course.
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Tues. Nov. 7: Robert Frost, Selected Poems, "Ghost House," "The Vantage Point," "The Mountain," "The Wood-Pile" 6th pos. paper
Thurs. Nov. 9: Frost, Selected Poems, "An Old Man's Winter Night," "Hyla Brook," "The Oven Bird," "Birches," "Putting in the Seed." 6th pos. paper
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Tues. Nov. 14: Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning," (course packet). 7th pos. paper
Thurs. Nov. 16: Marianne Moore, "The Octopus" (course packet) 7th pos. paper
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Tues. Nov. 21: John Muir, "The Water Ouzel" (course packet). 8th pos. paper
Thurs. Nov. 23: Thanksgiving. Free day. 8th pos. paper
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Tues. Nov. 28: William Faulkner, "Go Down Moses," "The Old People"
Thurs. Nov. 30: Faulkner, "Go Down Moses" "The Bear," "Delta Autumn"
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Tues. Dec. 5: Henry Beston, "Night on the Great Beach" (course packet)
Thurs. Dec. 7: Annie Dillard, "Nightwatch," (course packet) Second half project descriptions due.
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Tues. Dec. 12: Robinson Jeffers Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, poems in course packet.
Thurs. Dec. 14: Randall Jarrell, Gary Snyder, and Charles Wright, poems in course packet.
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SECOND HALF PROJECTS ARE DUE BY 4:30 ON DECEMBER 18
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Reserve Books:
(An asterix (*) denotes multiple copies)
*Oelschlager, Max, The Idea of Wilderness
*Harrison, Forests: the Shadow of Civilization
*Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
*Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
*Lyon, This Incomperable Lande
Ferry, Gilgamesh, A New Rendering in English Verse
Bate, Romantic Ecology
Kroeber, Ecological Literary Criticism
Keith, The Poetry of Nature
Foster, The Civilized Wilderness
Marx, The Machine in the Garden
Elder, Imagining the Earth
Burroughs, Accepting the Universe
Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
Symposium texts:
*Buell, The Environmental Imagination
*Lubin, Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in 19th Century
America
*______, Titanic
*Sherman, A Place on the Glacial Till
*Kaza and Kraft, Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist
Environmentalism *Young, Seasoning: A Poet's Year
_______, At the White Window