English 2080 (also PMA 2681) Spring 2020 MWF
12:20-1;10 Morrill Hall 106
Stuart Davis, Senior Lecturer Office: Goldwin Smith
133 hrs. T 2:30-4:00 & by appt. 5-6281 • sad4@cornell.edu T.A: Mint
Damrongpiwat • pd358@cornell.edu
Shakespeare and the 20th and
21st Centuries.
As of 4/6, some requirements listed below have been superseded by those given on the syllabus (next page)
What can we learn about Shakespeare's plays from their reception by
late modernity? What can we learn about modern cultures from the way they
use these texts and the Shakespeare mystique? We will study five plays and
their adaptations in film and theater and explore the uses made of
Shakespeare in education, advertising, and public culture and by the
Shakespeare industry itself. For spring 2020: Titus Andronicus, King
Lear, Merchant of Venice, The Tempest and Much Ado About
Nothing, with live or filmed performances directed by Sam Blake, Akira
Kurosawa, Grigori Kozintsev, Josie Rourke, Julie Taymor, and Fred Wilcox.
Required texts:
Stephen Greenblatt et al. The Norton Shakespeare: Essential
Plays. Third ed. ISBN 9780393938630
Aimé Césaire, A Tempest Consortium Book Sales
9781559362108
Shorter texts downloaded from the course websites (linked from
syllabus or marked "Canvas" on syllabus).
Features, guidelines,
requirements:
We'll read the plays in the third edition of The Norton
Shakespeare: Essential Plays. Bring it to class daily. Unless you hear
otherwise, for the first meeting of any play we read, plan to read the
Norton introduction and the first two acts. Other readings will be found
in texts listed above or available on-line.
The
Canvas site, limited to course members, will serve some some short
readings under weekly headers and will stream most films under
Library Resources.
Regular attendance is expected of everyone, and participation
is a feature of the course. The size of the group will determine how
much lecturing and how much discussing will go on. If you are absent,
you are responsible for knowing what has happened in your absence, so
bond with classmates.
Written work will include a short at-home paper Tuesday 2/11,
three 4-5 essays as scheduled, a final project ("Traces and
Appropriations"), and a final exam (yet to be scheduled). Your writing
will get a lot of attention in this course from Stuart and Mint.
Filmed performances, most streamed, are an integral part of
the course. You should view each in advance of the class(es) at which
it is discussed.
Everyone should see the Schwartz Center's production of Much
Ado about Nothing, our last course text, at the Flex Theatre. Get
tickets soon for Friday April 24 at 7:30 or Saturday April 25 at
7:30.
Stuart's office hours are given above: he encourages you to
visit during those times or at another, by appointment. He and Mint
will hold special office hours before each essay is due.
Updates to schedule will be posted at the open website. So
will relevant links and short excerpts from critical commentary and
reference material: these are called "scholia." Schedule changes will
be announced in class, but you should check the site regularly.
All the written work you submit must have been done for this
course in this semester and must be original with you in content and
expression, with all contributory sources fully and specifically
acknowledged. By enrolling in English 2080, you affirm that you are
familiar with Cornell's Academic Integrity Code, which prohibits
"knowingly representing the work of others as one's own" and "using,
obtaining, or providing unauthorized assistance on . . . academic work"
and is available at https://cuinfo.cornell.edu/
aic. cfm. To refresh your familiarity with the proper citation of
sources, go to the tutorial "Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism" at http:/
/ plagiarism. arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/index.cfm. In this
course, the normal penalty for an infraction is an "F" for the
semester.
Your grade will be determined this way: the four short
papers (60%), the final (15%), attendance and participation (15%),
your "Traces and Appropriations" project (10%).
"Traces and Appropriations" names a small final project for
which you will collect allusions to Shakespeare and citations of the
plays and poems in the news, politics, popular music, or film; on T.V.
or the Internet; in advertisements, cartoons, crossword puzzles, jokes,
urban belief tales, etc. (Your collection should reach sad4 in
electronic form with a short preface by you. Keep your eyes open
for such things all semester -- the more improbable, funny, or bizzare
the better -- and bring to class or circulate items that you find.)
There will be a small, sentimentally valuable prize for the most
offensive or unlikely find or the most thoughtfully compiled portfolio.
Learning objectives
As you proceed
with this course, your participation and written work should show that you
can
read Shakespearean texts accurately and imaginatively
with a view to literary, dramatic, and filmic interpretation;
understand, critically and reflectively, cultural appropriations
of the Shakespearean text and legend in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries;
write cogent short essays and examinations on course material
using appropriate evidence and arguments;
interpret text you cite (literary, theatrical, filmic, critical)
in depth and with appropriate reference to the source.
