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Spring '01 |
Mike Reynolds |
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English 341 |
Rice 26 (440) 775-8586 |
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Office hours: 2:30-3:30 MW, |
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COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class explores the connections between a comic sensibility and the postmodern text in contemporary American culture, using theoretical models of transgression (deviance within a potentially restrictive social order), aggression (dangerous drives evading the control of censors or reinforcing the structures of power), and digression (a trickster narrative displacing and revising the search/demand for order) -- essentially, we will be conducting a rigorous examination of the genre and its functions. Bend over and cough. Supplementing this primary goal is a central proposition: that comedy offers an uncanny reflection (and, potentially, an innovative reconsideration) of that wide spectrum of works, tactics, and theories labelled postmodern. Our goal is to develop a set of terms and critical tools which we can then use to evaluate the comic and the postmodern as possible means for aesthetic revision, political resistance, and social change.
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On Reserve: In order to concentrate on textual examples, most of the theoretical models will be presented in an abbreviated lecture format. However, all of my critical sources will be on reserve, as supplemental reading (the original text and/or a digital scan of relevant portions on ERES). Please see the calendar for relevant due dates and the appended reserve list (click here) for specific titles and availability.
THE EXTENDED DANCE MIX:
COURSE OBJECTIVES: To develop textual literacies: 1) within a concise, definition-seeking survey of texts related to a genre (comedy) and a period (the 'postmodern' in post-W.W.II America); 2) through a focused development of theoretical methods for analyzing both. Classwork will emphasize student-centered development of issues, building upon short teacher-led summaries of theoretical positions. Note: as that last clause indicated, you won't be required to read through a lot of theory, but I have placed on electronic and library reserve a number of essays and books to provide a broader set of sources for individual study.
ASSUMED PREMISES: Comedy seems to thumb its nose at academic analysis; a 'serious' approach to 'comic' texts appears doomed to miss the point. The least funny thing in the world is a tangled theory, packed with German words, meant to explicate a trim, tight punchline. However, even when we keep it simple our codes for comic appreciation don't seem to lend themselves to interesting discussion. We tend to think of simple contrasts (the comic is playful, versus the serious work of . . . insert artistic form here) or of simple release (comic "relief" from the serious, the political, the important . . .). Why do you think that is? What kinds of issues and analyses could (does?) comedy produce? Could it be a philosophical genre? A political form? What kinds of issues and analyses could an academic discussion of comedy produce, without fundamentally ignoring (or distorting) the pleasures of such texts? Could we imagine (and perform) a comic literary and cultural criticism?
This class will approach such questions from a couple of angles. First, we will define and delineate what some big shots have said, in order to generate a working set of terms and theories (often using German words) about comedy. Some of our claims and approaches will be formal and structural; sometimes we'll be thinking psychologically, sometimes socially (is there a difference?). The goal is that each of us emerges from our seminar with a working set of critical tools for assessing, analyzing, and approaching any cultural text, with a special emphasis on what the "comic" sensibility can do. (And, with that in mind, we will end the semester with a small group of problem texts which may, to some, resist comic interpretation.) Second, we will explore what connections can be drawn between our definitions of "the comic" and literary explorations of "the postmodern." Postmodernism might be a lot like comedy: rules are determined then mocked, or ignored; forms are parodied, ridiculed; language is a game, a series of failed references as meaning slides from this word to the next. The postmodern is also, like comedy, one of those categories that everybody can define but no one agrees upon.
REQUIREMENTS AND EVALUATION: 30% class participation, 15% 3 short papers, 25% final paper.
Participation: Is all. This is an intensive seminar, rushing through a series of complicated ideas and texts, demanding your rigorous attention to the subjects at hand, self-aware engagement with your own reading practices, and constant open-minded interactions with one another. Your participation (determined by class discussion, listserv engagements, small group work, laughter at instructor's keen wit, and various other signs of intelligent life) will constitute 30% of the final grade. Attendance is a must; miss more than three classes, and the participation grade will plummet. Be more than 10 minutes tardy, and you will be subject to much taunting and/or evaluative retribution.
Short papers: 3-4 pages each. They can come in 3 distinct flavors: 1) a summary and evaluation of one critical model/theory; 2) a close analysis of one primary work, reading its 'theory' of comedy, or; 3) an open-ended synthesis or creative extrapolation which presents YOUR theory of comedy within the specific context of works we've studied. There are no set due dates, but I must have one by 3/2, one by 4/2, and the last by 4/27. Note: you may substitute a class presentation for one of these; see me if interested.
Final paper: 12-15 pages. And wide open -- we will discuss the particular possibilites as class develops, but assume the need for a strong critical synthesis and argument about your theoretical models (for comedy and/or postmodernism), and focused analysis of some given text or texts. The exact nature of such a paper, though, may be considered somewhat plastic; I'm willing to hear ideas about how to reconsider/reconfigure the academic essay.
LE CALENDAR:
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Mon. 2/5 Wed. 2/7
Fri. 2/9
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Introduction Defining genre; defining comedy See "Some Like It Hot" (required), 7 p.m. Northrop Frye -- modes/genre (supplement: ERES and
regular reserve) See "Rushmore" (recommended), 4 p.m. |
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Mon. 2/12
Fri. 2/16 |
READ Sedaris (ERES), Alexie (handout) Bodies I: Bergson (supplement: ERES and regular
reserve) Bodies II: Bakhtin (supplement: regular reserve) |
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Mon. 2/19 Wed. 2/21
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READ Dunn READ Dunn READ Dunn |
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Wed. 2/28 Fri. 3/2 Sun. 3/4 |
READ Lethem READ Lethem See "In the Company of Men" (required), 7 p.m. |
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Mon. 3/5 Wed. 3/7
Sun. 3/11 |
Anger, power, control Barreca/gender -- Feminism and comedy (supplement:
ERES) READ Homes See "After Hours" (required), 7 p.m. |
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Mon. 3/12 Wed. 3/14 Fri. 3/16 |
Irony, closure, containment READ Pynchon READ Pynchon |
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Mon. 3/19
Wed. 3/21
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READ Pynchon READ Baraka "Dutchman" READ Beatty |
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SPRING |
BREAK |
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Mon. 4/2
Tue. 4/3 Wed. 4/4
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READ Beatty See "Bamboozled" or "Bulworth" (required), 7 p.m. Reading the politics of parody READ selected Pranks |
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Mon. 4/9 Tue. 4/10 Wed. 4/11
Fri. 4/13 |
READ Coover (ERES) See "Duck Soup" (required), 7 p.m. Digression and nonsense vs. satire READ Kingston |
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Mon. 4/16
Thurs. 4/19 Fri. 4/20 |
READ Kingston READ Kingston See "Magnolia" (required), 7 p.m. Is it/isn't it? -- debating our terms and theories |
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Mon. 4/23
Thu. 4/26 Fri. 4/27 |
READ Nabokov READ Nabokov See "Happiness" (supplemental), 7 p.m. READ Nabokov |
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Mon. 4/30
Tue. 5/1 Wed. 5/2
Fri. 5/4 |
READ Wright See "Dawn of the Dead" (required), 7 p.m. OR CLASS SELECTION READ Wright READ Wright |
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Mon. 5/7 Wed. 5/9 Fri. 5/11 |
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