Jeff Pence	Office: Rice 26
Fall 1998	Of. Hrs: M, 9-10:30; W, 2:30-4
MWF, 1:30-2:20 pm	Phone: x8586
King 127	Email: fpence

Texts:

• Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
• Willa Cather, My Antonia
• Rick Moody, The Ice Storm
• Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
• Plus items on Electronic Reserve and films
• the cost of a disposable camera and film development

Colloquia in the English Department share a common pedagogical goal: to give entering students an opportunity for small-classroom learning that emphasizes reading, discussion and writing. The price of this opportunity is the higher degree of responsibility students have for the progress of the course. Your reflections and contributions are at the center of this class; rather than receiving a body of information on topics related to abstractions such as "place," "American," or "culture," as a class we will attempt to generate our own terms for interpreting such topics and test them out in various ways.

To begin to understand the role of place in representations of American culture, we must first become aware of the ways in which our perceptions of place are themselves cultural. We will start the semester by writing reflectively about individual experiences of place and by reading some essays about landscape, environment, and the frames of perception which inform our understanding of them. Next, we will turn to our shared environment here in Northeastern Ohio. A common perception among those newly arrived in Oberlin is that the town is both "in the middle of nowhere" and somehow disadvantaged in terms of nature. It's my belief that both these perceptions are the result of an undeveloped ability to read the local landscape--both natural and cultural--which can easily be overcome. To do so, we'll take a tour of the Black River Watershed, from its headwaters to the industrial shores of Lake Erie, attempting along the way to develop written responses to the environment. Following this, we will spend some time at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, learning about the landscape tradition in American visual art, primarily photography. (More on this later, but some of you may have the opportunity to work with a visiting artist who will be creating and installing a work dealing with the Oberlin environment at the museum in the same week of our visit.) You'll each write a response to a visual representation of landscape in the Museum collection. We'll then return to the outdoors, this time with cameras, to try our own experiments with representing place. Finally, we'll close the first module, and begin our transition to the second, by looking at the poetry and essays of an Oberlin author (and professor) whose work is fundamentally rooted in the experience of the place we will have been immersing ourselves in.

The second half of the semester will seem more traditional. We'll read a series of literary narratives, and view some films, in which place plays an enormously important role. However, our experiences in the first half ought to inform our responses to these texts. At the very least, setting will cease to be background to the drama of character and action. Negotiating the relationship between our experiences in the first half with those of the second may finally be the most interesting aspect of this course.

Course Requirements:

1. Attendance is mandatory. If you miss four classes without a viable, documented excuse, you will No Entry this course.
2. Participation is vital to the success of the class. You will, ultimately, be teaching each other through your interactions. Quality counts as much an quantity; developing and responding to other points of view as much as expostulating new thoughts.
3. All reading/viewing assignments must be completed and considered when they are indicated on the schedule.
4. The Watershed and Museum visits, plus the session with a visiting writer, are important events to which other members of the Oberlin community have volunteered their time and energy. Very little could justify missing these events.

Written Work:

1. Essays are due frequently in this course. Often, work will be shared with other students. You will have three opportunities to revise earlier work. All these factors contribute to a tight schedule for writing. All assignments must be turned in no later than the beginning of the class which is indicated below.
2. Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and have one-inch margins. They should be mechanically clean.
3. Besides the physical copy you deliver to me, you will upload a copy of your written work onto the Alta Vista Forum dedicated to this class. Only members of this class will have access to this electronic forum, and I urge you to read each other's work (sometimes, I'll require it) and enter responses as reply posts in AVF.
4. At the end of the semester, I will evaluate a complete portfolio of your writing. Save all the drafts that I have commented on, as well as the revisions you have turned in. The grade for your written work will reflect both overall strength of writing and progress over the course of the semester.

Week 1
9/2	Introductions; discussion of syllabus
9/4	Perrin (Res.); Brandt (Res.)
Week 2
9/7	No class, Labor Day
9/9	Due: 4 pp.: "Where I am From" Paige, Baudrillard (Res.)
9/11	Dillard, Tall (Res.)
Week 3
9/14	Oates (Res.)
9/16	Percy (Res.)
9/18	Due: 4 pp.: "Experience of Nature" Percy, cont. SUNDAY NOON: WATERSHED TOUR
Week 4
9/21	Revision Workshop Due: informal responses to Watershed Tour
9/23	Due: 4-6 pp. revision of exercise 1 or 2
9/25	No class
Week 5
9/28	Allen Memorial Art Museum
9/30	No class, Yom Kippur
10/2	Allen Memorial Art Museum SUNDAY NOON: PHOTOGRAPHING THE WATERSHED
Week 6
10/5	Place & Poetry: David Young
10/7	cont.
10/9	Due: 4 pp.: Museum Response
Week 7
10/12	Photo-critique
10/14	cont.
10/16	Due: 4 pp.: Place and Poetry
	FALL BREAK
Week 8
10/26	Gass, (Res.)
10/28	cont.
10/30	Due: 4-6 pp. revision of exercise 3 or 4
Week 9
11/2	Cather, My Ántonia
11/4	cont.
11/6	cont.
Week 10
11/9	Robinson, Housekeeping
11/11	cont.
11/13	cont.
Week 12
11/16	Malick, Days of Heaven & Badlands
11/18	cont.
11/20	cont. Due: ~6 pp. on Cather and/or Robinson
Week 13
11/23	Revision Workshop
11/25
11/27	No class, Thanksgiving
Week 14
11/30	Alexie, The Lone Ranger...
12/1	cont.
12/3	cont.
Week 15
12/7	Moody, The Ice Storm
12/9	cont.
12/11	cont.
Week 16
12/14	Last Class Due: ~6 pp. on Malick, Alexie and/or Moody
12/17	End of Reading Period Due: Revision of exercise 5 or 6 & Portfolio