Calendar

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Part I: Texts, Textuality, and Intertextuality

core concepts: text, intertextuality, postmodernism, postcolonialism

Tuesday, August 28  

• Introduction

Thursday, August 30

• Jeff Todd Titon, “Text” from The Journal of American Folklore 108.430 (1995): 432–448. <http://www.jstor.org.mutex.gmu.edu/stable/10.2307/541655>
• Charles Bazerman, “Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts” from What Writing Does and How It Does It (Blackboard)
• Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” (Blackboard)

Tuesday, September 4

• Jessica Hagedorn, Dream Jungle, pp. 1-124
• Linda Hutcheon, “The Politics of Postmodernism” (Blackboard)
• Introduction to Investigation #1

Thursday, September 6

• Dream Jungle, pp. 125-185
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?” from Critical Inquiry (e-journal)

Tuesday, September 11

• Dream Jungle, pp. 186-251
• Apocalypse Now (on reserve in the JC, also available on NetFlix Instant Streaming)
• In class screening: Hearts of Darkness

Thursday, September 13

• Dream Jungle, pp. 252-325
• Investigation #1 Due

Part II: Enacted Textuality

core concepts: reading protocols, literature and race, double-voiced discourse

Tuesday, September 18

• Mat Johnson, Pym, pp. 1-154
• Peter Rabinowitz, excerpts from Before Reading (Blackboard)
• Introduction to Investigation #2

Thursday, September 20

• Pym, pp. 155-225
• Stephen Pyne, excerpt from The Ice (Blackboard)
• Jace Weaver, “Mr. Poe’s Indians: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Edgar Allan Poe as a Southern Writer,” from Native South (e-journal)

Tuesday, September 25

• Pym, pp. 224-322
• Investigation #2 Due

Thursday, September 27

• Mat Johnson Fall for the Book Reading

Tuesday, October 2  

• Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

Thursday, October 4

• Fun Home
• Ariela Freedman, “Drawing on Modernism in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home,” from the Journal of Modern Literature 32.4 (2009): 125-140. (e-journal)

Tuesday, October 9

• No Class

Thursday, October 11

• Fun Home
• Valerie Rohy, “In the Queer Archive: Fun Home,” from GLC 16.3 (2010): 341-361. (e-journal)

Part III: Defensive Textuality

core concepts: metafiction, historiography, genres

Tuesday, October 16

• Junot Díaz, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, pp. 1-75
• Introduction to Investigation #3
• Introduction to Reading Journal Audit

Thursday, October 18

• Oscar Wao, pp. 76-165
• Linda Hutcheon, “Historiographic Metafiction” from Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction (Blackboard)

Tuesday, October 23

• Oscar Wao, pp. 166-261
• Susan Sontag, “The Imagination of Disaster,” from Against Interpretation (Blackboard)

Thursday, October 25

• Oscar Wao, pp. 262-335
• Investigation #3 due

Tuesday, October 30

• Hurricane Sandy

Thursday, November 1

• Anne Carson, Nox

Tuesday, November 6

• Online Activity: Instant Essay on Nox
• Reading Journal Audit Due

Thursday, November 8

• Colson Whitehead, Zone One, pp. 1-128 (“Friday”)
• Kyle William Bishop, excerpt from American Zombie Gothic (Blackboard)

Tuesday, November 13

• Zone One, pp. 129-271 (“Saturday”)

Thursday, November 15

• Zone One, pp. 272-322 (“Sunday”)

Tuesday, November 20

• Work on Annotated Bibliography

Thursday, November 22

• Thanksgiving / No Class

Part IV: Interretextuality

core concepts: rereading, revision

Tuesday, November 27

• Re-reading one of the six major works from the semester
• Annotated Bibliography Due

Thursday, November 29

• Re-reading and group discussion

Tuesday, December 4

• Group discussions

Thursday, December 6

• Peer work on final paper

Tuesday, December 11

• Final Research Paper due, submitted via Blackboard as a PDF file.