|
The generic:
Fall, 2880; Spring, 2890. 4 credits. Each section limited to 17
students. Students must have completed their colleges' first-year
writing requirements or have the permission of the instructor. S.
Davis, C. Green, and staff.
English 2880-2890 offers guidance and an audience for students
who wish to gain skill in expository writing -- the common term for
critical, investigative, and creative nonfiction. Each section provides
a context for writing defined by a form or use of exposition, a
disciplinary area, a practice, or a topic intimately related to the
written medium. Course members will read in relevant published material
and write and revise their own work regularly, while reviewing and
responding to one another's. Since these seminar-sized courses depend
on members' full participation, regular attendance and submission of
written work are required. Students and instructors will confer
individually throughout the term.
Some sections:
These typify what has been offered in the past --
often under different titles and by one or more instructors -- and may
be revived in the future.
Dead and Deadly Women
(fall 2019, spring 2020)
|
Darkly troubled women who circumvent our expectations and disrupt their
assigned social positions abound in recent books and films. In this
course, we will be examining fiction by authors like Ottessa Moshfegh
and Oyinkan Braithwaite, poems by writers from Keats to Megan Levad,
films like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, and essays
from writers like Alice Bolin and Tori Telfer, who provide fascinating
commentary on the continuing appeal of the feminine noir in popular
culture.
N. IKE- NJOKU
|
American Nightmare: Horror Films and Fictions
(fall 2018, spring 2019, spring 2020)
|
Why do we like to be afraid? What kind of fear is intrinsically
American and why? From the early fear of the cultural "other" in Universal Classic Monsters to the Satanic Panic of the 60s and 70s in Rosemaryβs Baby to Cold War paranoia and unchecked consumer culture in Romeroβs Trilogy of the Dead to contemporary race relations in Get Out,
this course seeks to understand how horror films speak to, and perhaps
against, our countryβs past, present and, future. Possible texts may
also include Poe short stories, works by Stephen King and Shirley
Jackson, and Ling Ma's Severance. Assignments will include
critical essays, written creative projects, and the making of a
short-length horror screenplay as a final project.
myriad forms fighting back against the most dangerous species of all:
us. R. BARNES
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Ecohorror: Writing Climate Change, Darkly
(fall 2018, spring 2019)
|
This course considers texts that grapple with the terror of Earth-bound
existence in the age of climate change, also called the Anthropocene.
Parsing the aesthetic, political, ethical, and environmental effects of
writing in the genre of "ecohorror," we will ask: How are artists
reckoning with the escalating and frightening presence of the
other-than-human? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
representing the biosphere darkly--not as a benevolent "Mother Earth"
but as a vengeful and inescapable force? Reorienting the
environmentalist rhetoric of "saving the planet," we will analyze short
stories, novels, and films that represent life in myriad forms fighting
back against the most dangerous species of all: us.
K. ANGIERSKI
|
Culinary Encounters of the Other Kind
(fall 2018, spring 2019)
|
What does it mean to say you're hungry for something? This course
explores the joyful and the dark sides of eating and traces how food
informs the ways in which we ingest the world, particularly the parts of
it unfamiliar to us. We will consider how the meeting of food, word,
and image inform larger social categories and reflect on the way food
affects how we think about others, putting it in conversation with
literature, art, current events, film, imperialism, and history.
Possible texts include Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, art by Kara Walker, Kyla Wazana Tompkins' Racial Indigestion, the Iroquois White Corn Project, fiction by Chimamanda Adiche, The Search for General Tso, Greek myths, and Rabindranath Tagore's "Hungry Stones." B. THOMPSON
|
Feeling Human: Animals, Humans,
the Posthuman
(fall 2018, spring 2019)
|
This course considers how emotions and their effects on the body and the
environment constitute what it feels like to be a human. To investigate
these affective stances, this course will study narratives where human
identity is constituted or disrupted by meeting nonhuman and posthuman
identities. We'll also consider how emotion and related categories are a
kind of cognition from the perspective of contemporary affect theory.
Course materials may include the films Her (2013) and The Shape of Water
(2017), fiction by A.S. Byatt and Tιa Obreht, and scholarship by Donna
Haraway, Brian Massumi and Ruth Leys. H. SURENDRANATHAN
|
Addictive Media, or How to Survive What You Love
(fall 2018, spring 2019)
|
What is addiction in the 21st century? The substances of addiction have
changed throughout history, but so too has our definition of addiction,
who can be addicted, and how we should treat it. This course will
examine addiction through an assortment of different media texts, from
science fiction films to documentaries to Snapchat. We will analyze
movies such as The Social Network, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Her as well as television shows like Breaking Bad, hook-up apps like Tinder, and popular video games like League of Legends.
By the end of the course, we will create our own definitions of
addiction that adequately address the dangers as well as possible
benefits of addictive media. Z. PRICE
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What If? Alternative Histories and Speculative Fictions
(fall 2017, spring 2018)
|
What if the Axis powers had won World War II? What if the Great
Depression had never ended? What if single-sex societies had evolved
through reproductive innovation? Speculative fiction plays with such
possibilities and can present us with new pasts, opening up new presents
and futures. We'll read a range of alternative histories such as
Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Ken Grimwood's Replay, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents,
and James Tiptree, Jr.'s "Backward, Turn Backward," exploring the
mechanisms that make these strange tales possible and bringing them into
conversation with theoretical texts on psychoanalysis, political
theory, and the philosophy of history. Essays and class discussions
will ask: why are such alternatives so alluring?
J. LEE
|
Modern Metamorphoses
(fall 2017, spring 2018)
|
In ancient myths, humans are transformed into animals, plants, and other
shapes and states of being. Why do such stories haunt us in the
digital age? How fluid are our own identities, and are we capable of
metamorphoses of our own? To answer these questions, we will discuss
contemporary ideas about gender, sexuality, art, gene editing,
experiences of time, and creative autobiography. We will also develop
expository writing skills through a wide range of assignments. Course
materials may include Ursula Le Guin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness, films such as Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo,
scientific journal articles, and other cutting-edge theories of what it
means to be human - and maybe more. S. SCHLEMM
|
The Reality Effect:
Documentary Film
(fall 2017, spring 2018)
|
We trust documentary films to portray the "real" world, yet engaged
viewers understand that reality looks different from different
perspectives, and documentaries have the power to shape and alter the
truth in the process of reporting on it. In this course you'll practice
critical reading and viewing, paying close attention to how recent
documentaries construct, maintain, reimagine, and/or challenge our
understanding of the world and of ourselves. In discussion and writing,
we'll consider the ethics and politics of representation and the
question of who speaks for whom. Films may include Grizzly Man, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Stories We Tell, Citizenfour, Cameraperson, and The Act of Killing, as well as adjacent genres like reality television and mockumentary.
B. LU
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Do Our Stories Matter?
(fall 2017, spring 2018)
|
Can a story take down a system? Under what conditions? This Creative
Nonfiction course will examine the role of the personal narrative as a
political weapon. We will analyze the impact of art on the
sociopolitical landscape through the works of James Baldwin, Adrienne
Rich, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. We will then
interrogate our own biases, assumptions, desires, relationships, and
fears in order to write the self into a global context. The essays we
craft will confront the intersections of political and personal trauma,
history and family, identity and theory. Ultimately, we will ponder, "Do
our stories matter? Why or why not?"
A. MASUM-JAVED
|
Legal (Science) Fictions
(spring 2016, spring 2017)
|
Science fiction writers build whole new social systems, and questions of
how to govern these new societies inevitably come up. Ought this robot
be considered a legal person? Does this cool new policing tactic
infringe our rights? Should earth laws apply in space? In this course,
we'll consider how such legal topics as personhood, equality, and
criminality arise in science fiction and in real cases, and how issues
of gender, race, labor, and policing and punishment are complicated by
technology in our own world. Assignments will include writing your own
Utopia, and a collaborative research project on a currently contested
legal-technological issue. Authors will include Octavia Butler, Lauren
Beukes, Ursula Le Guin, and China Miιville.
M. BRANGAN
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The Invented "I"
(fall 2015 - fall 2019)
|
In this Creative Nonfiction course, we'll explore the personal essay,
focusing on how the form can be a tool for self-discovery,
self-reflection, and self-invention. As thinkers, we'll focus on the
practice of critical reflection, learn how to interrogate our
experiences, make peace with the imperfections of our memory, and become
more conscious of the particular ways in which we see the world. As
writers, we'll study narrative craft, including scene, dialogue,
metaphor and character development. Our reading will feature Jamaica
Kincaid, Zadie Smith, Eula Biss, James Baldwin and David Foster Wallace,
among many others. A few documentaries and audio stories will round
things out. Through our workshops, we'll learn how to be generous,
empathetic, and constructive readers of our peers' work.
L. AKINSIKU
|
The Epic Western
(fall 2016, spring 2017)
|
Sweeping vistas. Dark canyons. A cowboy hero, and -- the Vietnam War?
Epic Westerns shape the legendary landscape of the American West and
dramatize individual and collective efforts to establish national
values. At the same time, they track the way those values change over
time, reflecting contemporary cultural or political events, e.g. the
antiwar movement, feminism, the nation's bicentennial. Looking at
recent political struggles, we'll discover what history Western
narratives engage, and what they obscure. In films such as The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, and the recent The Hateful Eight, as well as novels including Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, we will examine the intersections of history, gender, class, race, and power in the mythic American West.
A. HARMON
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Writing Back to the Media:
Issues and Arguments
(spring 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
|
Good investigative journalists write well and use their reportage to
argue effectively. How can we adopt features of their writing for a
variety of purposes and audiences, academic and popular? Our weekly
readings will include features from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, slate.com, and The New York Times,
among others. Students will write essays of opinion and argument -- in
such forms as news analysis, investigative writing, personal history,
and op-ed pieces -- on topics such as environmental justice, the value
of an elite education, human rights conflicts, the uses of technology,
gender equality, and the ethics of journalism itself. Coursework will
include an independently researched project on a subject of the
student's choosing.
K. KING-O'BRIEN
|
Recognizing Genocide
(fall 2016)
|
Genocides remain etched in our memories. But what, exactly, is a
genocide? In this course, you'll write in several roles to shape public
opinion. As a legal expert, you'll review the Genocide Convention's
applicability to the Rwandan genocide. As an academic, you'll test the
concept of genocide against the Cambodian experience. Reporting as a
journalist, you'll profile the killings in former Yugoslavia. As a
politician, you will debate whether to recognize the deaths in Darfur as
a genocide or not. To support these several forms of writing, you'll
read Henri Locard's Pol Pot's Little Red Book, watch Hotel Rwanda and Enemies of the People, explore the genocide archive at Cornell, and hear cases from the Arusha Accords and The Hague.
G. TOOR
|
Grassroots Politics
(fall 2015, spring 2016)
|
What does it take to run a successful grassroots campaign in the U.S.?
This course will teach you the nuts and bolts of political campaigning
for both candidates and issues. You will learn how to determine the best
timing for your campaign, how to develop a campaign strategy, how to
target and persuade voters, how to raise money, how to use media, how to
manage people, and how to run an election-day operation. Drawing on
readings from political scientists, modern campaign consultants like
James Carville and Dick Morris, and classical strategists like Sun Tzu,
you will discover the art and science of campaigning, while improving
your research and writing by producing documents like op-eds, district
profiles, and strategy memos all for the campaign of your choice.
M. SORELLE
|
Patient Zero to Global Pandemic
(fall 2015, spring 2016)
|
The medical historian Roy Porter claims diseases are "largely of
mankind's own making." If so, what is our responsibility in fighting
them? This course examines literature, television, film, and radio
concerning disease outbreaks in order to consider how humans manage
disease on an individual and societal level. How do fictional
representations of outbreaks speak to ongoing debates about
international aid work, quarantine procedures, and mandated
vaccinations? Course materials may include Albert Camus's The Plague, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies, episodes from House, M.D., the TV mini-series Angels in America, and films from the X-Men series.
K. SCHLAURAFF
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Secrets, Surveillance, and You
(fall 2015, spring 2016)
|
Political secrets call to mind spies like James Bond or Jason Bourne.
What if the protagonist of the drama of political secrets is not some
fantastical secret agent, but you? Drones, hackers, and secret court
hearings have become part of our infrastructure of knowledge-making and
governing. This is done in your name, to keep you safe. This course will
explore the relationship between political secrets, transparency,
knowledge, and individuality. We will discuss literary texts like the
story of Judas, In Cold Blood, and A Most Wanted Man, investigative journalism about Wikileaks and the Snowden documents, and films like Zero Dark Thirty and Imitation Game. In the end, we all have to choose which secrets to tell, which to keep.
J. REINHARDT
|
Creative Nonfiction:
Exploring the Personal Essay
(spring 2014, spring 2015)
|
In this course, we will read and write personal essays, exploring the
various possibilities within the genre. We will explore the power of
image and specific detail, the uses and limits of the first-person
narrating self, and the boundary between public and private. Reading
will focus on contemporary essayists, possibly including Leslie Jamison,
Claudia Rankine, Eula Biss, Hilton Als, and John Jeremiah Sullivan; we
will also read older essays, including those of Virginia Woolf, George
Orwell, and James Baldwin. We will also pay close attention to students'
writing, with workshop feedback. Working through drafts, students will
develop fuller skill at criticism and revision.
C. GREEN
|
Black Power, Yellow Peril
(fall 2015)
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Why have Asian Americans been held up as a model minority while African
Americans have been disparaged? How do African American and Asian
American experiences of race and gender inform each other? In 2013
activist Suey Park used "#BlackPowerYellowPeril" to promote a vision of
interracial alliance going back to the great anti-slavery orator
Frederick Douglass's defense of the Chinese. Taking the
turn-of-the-century Yellow Peril and the mid-century Black Power
movement as racialized embodiments of white American fear, this course
will trace literary points of contact, conflict, and coalition across
these two racial formations. Possible content includes political
writings by Malcolm X and Chairman Mao, novels by Toni Morrison and
Maxine Hong Kingston, movies like Enter the Dragon, and music such as the Wu-Tang Clan's. C. YAO
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Postmodern, Post-Body,
Post-Human
(fall 2012, spring 2014)
|
What comes after humankind? What will it mean to be "human" in a
digital, computerized future? When we work on robotics and artificial
intelligence, what are we really building -- new companions, inevitable
successors, or our future oppressors? How will we come to think about
differences in gender, race or social class: will they be obsolete,
exaggerated, or altered beyond all recognition? We'll begin to answer
such questions by discussing science-fiction movies (Blade Runner); television shows (Star Trek); comic books (X-Men);
short fiction (Asimov's Robot stories); and music (from Miles Davis to
Outkast). We'll continue the discussion by writing essays that tackle
the central concerns of art, popular culture, society and history.
M. BUCEMI
|
Rebels on the Road
(fall 2013, spring 2014)
|
Ever since the coming of the automobile,
Americans have imagined the highway as a place of liberation. By hitting
the road, drivers escape the rigid confines of conservative morality
and seek new horizons -- some finding more than they bargained for. In
this course, we'll look at myths of the American highway in a variety of
genres--including road movies such as Easy Rider, Natural Born Killers, and Thelma and Louise, books such as Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and TV shows such as Route 66.
Along the way, students will write essays in which they explore this
genre and those features of American society and culture it envisions.
J. SEARCY
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Science Fiction and the Political
(fall 2013, spring 2014)
|
Science fiction is inherently political.
It presents audiences with imagined worlds partly like our own while
highlighting key real-world social and political issues. In this course
we'll study an array of SF films and fictions as a means of addressing
such complicated and contentious questions as the origin and force of
authority, the nature of democracy, representation in government, war,
terrorism, torture, reproductive and sexual rights, socioeconomic and
gender equality, and political justice. Fictions include selections
from Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, and The Matrix,
among others, which we will pair with crucial texts from such thinkers
as Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, J.S. Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx,
John Rawls, and Hannah Arendt. M. GRECO
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Creative Nonfiction: The Essay as Memoir
(fall 2010-fall 1013)
|
The essay as memoir is by turns personal
and analytic, figurative and funny; sometimes it is all of these at
once. It always reflects on the writer's experience, knowledge, and
feelings. In this Creative Nonfiction course we will read and write
creative nonfiction in this genre, considering issues of voice,
intention, and artful execution, and understanding that our writing has
both personal and public consequences. While course reading will include
writers such as Alice Walker and Annie Dillard as well as Cornell's own
E. B. White, James McConkey, and Kenneth McClane, we will spend equal
or more time reading and discussing the writing of course members.
Students will build their work through frequent revision, and will gain
skill at being one another's reviewers and advisors.
K. GOTTSCHALK, R. COYE, S. NAM
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War, Peace, Terror, and the Law
(fall 2012 - fall 2014)
|
In what ways is the War on Terror a war in
the legal sense? What novel issues are raised by such anti-terrorism
measures as targeted assassinations, drone attacks, and indefinite
detentions and by the category of "unlawful combatant"? This course
covers the fundamentals of the international law of war and peace with
an analytical focus on terrorism. We will explore such questions as when
and against whom military force is legally permissible and what
measures the U.S may use, both internationally and domestically, to
police terrorism. We will study U.S. and international case law,
statutes and executive orders, United Nations documents, and scholarly
articles. Students will write opinion pieces combining legal argument
with personal insight, advocacy papers, and a final research project.
V. PHULWANI, S. GRAF, O. INCE
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Rights in Conflict in American Democracy
(fall 2012)
|
The Declaration of Independence and
American political culture place individual rights at the center of
political life -- and simultaneously insist upon the right of government
by consent. Not surprisingly, conflicts arise between different sets
and understandings of rights. Does judicial review protect those
established in the Bill of Rights or does it endanger government by
consent? Does religious liberty require or prohibit exempting religious
sects from generally applicable laws? When is it necessary to limit
speech to protect equality? Does equal protection of the laws prohibit
or require affirmative action? Must we be willing to curtail some rights
in times of crisis? This course explores such controversies through a
reading of contemporary and historical commentary, Supreme Court
decisions, and lots of writing. M. GRECO
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Global Romance: Crossing Borders
(fall 2007
-spring 2012)
|
Do people the world over love in the same
way, or does romance mean different things in different cultures? What
happens when love violates social norms? Is the "romance" genre an
escape from real-world conflicts or a resolution of them? This course
examines romantic narratives produced in Africa, South Asia, and the
Caribbean and contrasts them with romantic narratives from the West. We
will look at such works as Othello, Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, juxtaposing them with Saleh's Season of Migration to the North, Gurinder Chaddha's film Bride and Prejudice, and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea
-- paying attention, too, to the Western romantic-comedy film and the
Bollywood spectacular and writing reviews and critical essays..
K. SHANDILYA, N. PALMER, M. LAKHI, D. HAQUE
|
Digital Txt: Language and Computers
(fall 2011, spring 2012)
|
How has digital technology changed written
and spoken language? How do blogs open avenues for expression not seen
in conventional autobiography and journalism? How does the anonymity of
online worlds affect our identities and political lives? We'll focus on
computers' cultural effects, examining how they open new possibilities
for artistic expression, intellectual debate, political protest, and
social exchange. Examples will range from kinetic typography and "flarf"
to concrete poetry and old typewriters, from hip-hop and slam poetry to
the early days of audio recording. We will discuss the ethics of spam,
the politics of Wikileaks, and the aesthetics of Facebook. Students will
reflect on and write about how computers enable and constrain their
own approaches to research and writing. S. PERLOW
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Fieldwriting: Telling Community Stories
(spring 2009 - spring 2012)
|
Journalists, activists, researchers and
just plain citizens tell stories to report facts, build personal
relationships, preserve family and community identities, work in
academic disciplines, and even start social movements and affect public
policy. In this course, we examine how such people find their stories,
craft them with substance and style, and engage their power for change.
Students will work in "fields" of their choice to design research
projects and sharpen critical and technical skills: from compiling
observational notes to documenting data ethically, from making fair and
useful claims about others to using language persuasively. We will
share stories "from the field," as we write, workshop, and revise our
own fieldwritings. T. CARRICK
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Teens Gone Wild: The Invention of Adolescence
(spring 2009, fall 2009, spring 2012)
|
The American teenager has not always
existed. Recent versions were invented in fiction and film in the 1950s
and 1960s with a surge in the marketing of youth culture and the
eruption of collective hysteria surrounding adolescent sexuality. In
this course we'll examine various juvenile delinquents and dropouts,
precocious nymphets, and alienated outsiders as they come of age in a
turbulent American landscape in order to ask what kinds of cultural work
such depictions do. Our texts may include Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Audre Lorde's Zami, Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home, and the films Rebel Without a Cause, The Breakfast Club, and Superbad. J. METZLER, L. CUMMINGS, K. KING-O'BRIEN
|
Justice.com: Cybertechnology and the Law
(fall 2009, spring 2010)
|
Facebook, YouTube, eBay, cyberbullying,
electronic threats to privacy, new forms of digital property and
communication, and new venues for free speech -- developments like these
have challenged the law faster than courts can interpret it or
legislatures modify it. The fast-paced evolution of electronic
technology has caused the rapid expansion of "cyberlaw," whose
principles and limits are worth exploring. This course will place such
issues as illegal music downloading and the rights and wrongs of social
networking in the wider context of intellectual property and
communication law, looking at ways in which law and technology intersect
and affect each other. Students will read court cases, journal
articles, and popular media articles on these topics, writing short
essays and a final research project. J. MENENDEZ, E. SIMBRO
|
TV Nation: Television and Identity
in America
(spring 2009- fall 2011)
|
Television mediates our national and
domestic life more than we may realize. From its origins, TV-- even for
those who consume little of it -- has represented, even regulated, our
experiences of childhood and adolescence, production and consumption,
politics and citizenship. It seeks to define us as people, workers, and
citizens. In this course, we will develop ways to read and to write
about the small screen as a cultural text. In doing so, we will explore
how the genres, institutions and ideologies of contemporary television
both reflect and refract our national and domestic life.
D. FAULKNER
|
Human Rights: Ideals and Realities
(fall 2009)
|
How does the international legal system
protect human rights? Why does that system fail, when it does? Which
populations are protected by international human rights, humanitarian,
and criminal law, and who suffers from breakdowns of the system? In
this course, we will survey international human rights treaties,
conventions, declarations, case law, and customs, and we will explore
the ultimate uses and limitations of these laws. We will examine topics
including torture, war crimes and genocide, female genital mutilation,
human trafficking, and the War on Terror, and case studies like the
Kosovo and Rwanda conflicts. Students will participate in class
discussions and will write case briefs, opinion and advocacy pieces, and
a final research project.
Z. HARIVANDI
|
Free Speech in the Twenty-First Century
(fall 2008, spring 2009)
|
Our two-hundred-year-old First Amendment
did not specify how the federal or state governments should treat
offensive speech, advocacy of illegal actions, obscenity, sedition, or
defamation, but the courts have created and applied a body of First
Amendment doctrine to changing historical circumstances. How will
courts adjudicate these and other issues in the new century: national
security's encroachment on citizens' communication, the sociopolitical
impact of pornography, the psychological harm of hate speech, drug
apparel and advocacy in schools, ecological "terrorism," the profiling
of speech communities, and cyberspace privacy regulation? In this
course we'll explore these questions by reading court cases, legal
scholarship, and popular journalism and writing case briefs, analytic
articles, and a longer paper involving research.
N. DORSEY
|
Gained in Translation: Writing Across Cultures
(spring 2009)
|
We cross from one culture to another
whenever we leave one region or language or ethnicity or social class or
sexuality or family for another. We learn from such crossings -- such
"translations" -- when we reflect on them, making a net gain out of
experience that may have been painful or disorienting. In this course
we'll read the writing of such culture-crossers as Le Thi Diem Thuy,
Maxine Hong Kingston, James Baldwin, David Sedaris, Vladimir Nabokov,
Jamaica Kincaid, Czeslaw Milosz, and Jonathan Franzen. We will write
both critically and reflectively on our own culture-crossing
experiences. Students will build skill as writers through frequent
revision and learn to become thoughtful critics of their own and others'
work. S. GEHRING
|
Conspiring with History: Apocalyptic Fictions
(fall 2009, fall 2010, fall 2012)
|
In these latter days, apocalyptic
imaginings abound: conspiracy theories, expectations of doom, omens of
millennium. For the last half-century they have inspired crisis
narratives in film, prose fiction, and the graphic novel -- stories that
help us make sense (or fun) of history and discover or re-invent the
course it's taking. We'll read and write about works in such genres as
the cold-war assassination tale (Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate), the paranoid quest romance (Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49), the ideological dystopia (Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale), the superhero apocalypse (Watchmen), the end-time narrative (Doris Lessing's Memoirs of a Survivor, Cormac McCarthy's The Road), the apocalyptic graphic novel (Watchmen) and the millennial fantasy (Tony Kushner's Angels in America). And we may invent our own end-time stories, conspiracy theories, and even conspiracies. S. DAVIS
|
Screening Terror: The Culture of Horror Films
(fall 2008)
|
Horror films terrify and titillate
audiences -- and give insight into the anxieties and desires of the
cultures that produce and consume them. This course explores issues of
spectatorship and identification in cinema and the interplay between
audiences and the thrillers. We will be asking who gets killed, who does
the killing, and who watches and participates in the spectacle.
Reading critical writings by Carol Clover, Laura Mulvey, and Mark
Jancovich, we will investigate the ways in which gender, race, and class
figure into representations of the horrific. Films may include Night of the Living Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit on Your Grave, 28 Days Later, and Haute Tension. Writing assignments will include informal responses, critical essays, and a final project. D. HAQUE
|
The Reflective Essay
(fall 1997-fall 2009)
|
The reflective essay is by turns personal,
analytic, figurative, funny, critical and argumentative. It cogitates on
the writer's experience, knowledge, feelings, and opinions, and brings
those subjects to the attention of a public audience. In this course we
will read and write creative non-fiction in this genre with both
personal and public consequences, considering issues of voice,
intention, scope, and artful execution. While course reading will
include such writers as Alice Walker and Annie Dillard as well as
Cornell's own E. B. White, James McConkey, and Kenneth McClane, we will
spend equal or more time reading the writing of course members. Students
will build their work from brief to longer compositions through
frequent revision, and will gain skill at being one another's reviewers
and advisors. K. GOTTSCHALK, P. GOMEZ-IBAΡEZ, S. ADCOCK, and others
|
The Nature of Nature: Cultural Perspectives
(fall 2008)
|
In the U.S., we habitually separate nature
from civilization, conserving it in government-protected parks and
visiting it on holiday. But American naturalists and Native American
peoples offer other ways of experiencing nature: as a whole ecology, as
a realm to abide in, as a kinship system which humans share with all
life in interdependent and intimate relationships. In this course we
will explore such alternatives through narratives that define what
differing cultures have meant by "environment," "nature," and "place."
We will read such writers as Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, Terry
Tempest Williams, Leslie Silko, and Simon Ortiz, and we will articulate
our own perspectives in critical essays and experiential narratives --
exploring, too, the essay form and its possibilities for critique and
discovery. V. KENNEDY
|
The Autobiographical Essay:
I Write, Therefore I Am
(spring 2008)
|
The autobiographical essay has had a long
history in the African American literary tradition. Black people
literally wrote themselves into existence, since the ability to write in
America became indistinguishable from the ability to be taken seriously
as an intelligent human being. In this seminar, we will read important
autobiographical narratives by Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Audre
Lorde, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King and others, examining how one's
personal experience -- when rendered in good, trenchant prose -- can
make powerful analytic statements. Students will be expected to write
about their own lives, paying attention to their respective histories,
and working, as all good writers must, to make the seemingly incoherent
coherent. K. MCCLANE
|
The Criminal Trial: Issues and Actors
(fall 2008, spring 2009)
|
Every criminal defendant is entitled to "a
day in court," but what does that guarantee really entail? We will
explore the procedural and substantive issues that arise before, during,
and after today's criminal trials. What roles do (and should)
attorneys, judges, and jurors play? What ethical dilemmas do
prosecutors and defense attorneys face? What evidence should be
excluded from the jury's consideration? May a jury disregard the law in
rendering a verdict? We will study court opinions, legal and
philosophical scholarship, and popular articles and narrative films to
reach our own verdicts on these and other contentious questions.
Students will draft and revise case briefs, responses, and a final
research project. . T. HARRIS
|
The University, Society,
and the Law
(fall 2007, spring 2008)
|
Is the American university an enclave of
privileged anarchy or a microcosm of a society that tries to settle its
conflicts by law? What happens when students, faculty, and the
university go to court against each other? Where do conduct codes come
from? Who enjoys "academic freedom"? Should universities be concerned
with gender, ethnic, and economic diversity? Who owns the products of
the knowledge factory? This course will take up such issues as freedom
of speech, equal protection, affirmative action, sexual harassment,
intellectual property ownership, and collective governance -- looking
at these and other concerns through the lens of higher education.
Students will write case briefs, opinion and advocacy pieces, and a
final project involving research. A. MILLER
|
Endsight: Apocalyptic Fictions
(fall 2006, spring 2007)
|
"Apocalypse" evokes visions of the end of
the known world but also points to a new and improved one. Today, the
apocalyptic imagination flourishes as almost never before, in part
thanks to serious threats to human survival (ecocidal, nuclear,
pathological). It converges strikingly with science fiction's
speculative impulse; some critics contend that the two genres are one.
We will trace the apocalyptic in science fiction films (eXistenZ), novels (The Handmaid's Tale, Riddley Walker), and short stories (Super Flat Times),
asking what each posits about appropriate human relationships with the
environment, technology, and government, the transmission and
application of knowledge, and human nature itself. Armed with these
"endsights," we will write analytically and creatively about our world
from arrestingly different perspectives.
T. KEARNS
|
Choosing Sides: Horror and Drama in Cinema
(fall 2006, spring 2007)
|
This course explores spectatorship,
cinematic identification, and the active ways in which we interact with
film. We'll study the ways in which films assault viewers -- with the
gore of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, with the ultra-violence of Dario Argento's Opera.
We'll read critical texts by people who have already plumbed the dark
depths of film: Laura Mulvey and Carol Clover. Then we'll see whether
the horror film's relationship with its viewers applies to such
non-horror films as Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express and Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape.
(If a film can make you fear for your life, can it make you fall in
love?) Students will learn to write technically and analytically about
film and how to write good critical essays.
M. GARRETT
|
Constitutional Law and the Media
(fall 2006, spring 2007)
|
Controversial issues like abortion,
affirmative action, and gay marriage seem to surface in the news almost
daily: what are the legal principles behind these conflicts, and how do
the media handle them? This course will read Supreme Court opinions,
scholarly commentary and relevant Constitutional provisions that have
sparked debate and will make comparisons with media portrayals of the
cases, their outcomes, and the judges who decide them. We'll also pay
attention to media-specific questions like reportorial privilege.
Students will write shorter papers on selected cases and controversies
and undertake a final research project on a topic of their choosing.
J. CARELLO
|
Sex on the Brain
(spring 2007)
|
In the 19th century, scientists proved that
since women had smaller brains than men, women were less intelligent.
In the 21st century, former Harvard president Lawrence Summers
speculated that women were underrepresented in the sciences because of
innate brain differences. Current research looks for evidence of
structural differences using brain scanning technologies. This course
will investigate how this and other attempts to distinguish male and
female abilities get portrayed in scientific studies, the news media,
and the popular press. We will consider such topics as the "gender gap"
in higher education and the way scientific research affects our
conceptions of gender distinctions. In addition to regular short essays,
students will write one long essay based on research into a topic
connected to their interests. J. MARTIN
|
American Political Satire
After 9-11
(fall 2006, spring 2007
|
It's been said that on September 11, "The
Age of Irony" suddenly, painfully came to an end. Yet in the months
that followed, political satire--brash, ironic, reform-minded--revived
with unexpected success. In this seminar, we will analyze works of
political satire from the likes of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, The Onion,
Dave Chappelle, David Rees, and Sacha Baron Cohen. We will locate
these works within the historical tradition of American political satire
(Mark Twain, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks) and study them as indexes of the
post-9/11 political and cultural climate. Students will write
critically about the form and function of political satire, and they
will experiment with writing topical political satires of their own.
E. GOODE
|
Making the News
(fall 2000-fall 2008)
|
What is the responsibility of the media in
our society? What is the proper relationship of the media to democracy,
to the Internet, to government? Do American mainstream media
"manufacture" our "consent"? In this course, we will investigate how the
news is made--by public events and figures and by the media
themselves--as well as whom it is made for. We will explore current
newspaper, magazine, television, and Internet news reportage throughout
the semester, considering it in the context of critical readings in
American journalism and mass communications by such writers as Noam
Chomsky, Robert McChesney, and Norman Solomon. Writing will include
short critical responses, longer analytic essays on media issues, and a
final paper involving research. J. CARLACIO, S. DAVIS , J. PALERMO, and others
|
Hollywood Babylon
(fall 2005-spring 2006)
|
Dream factory or nightmare? Promised land
or wasteland? This course will nexplore Hollywood's symbolic role in
American culture from the 1920s to the present, considering the myriad
ways in which the film capital has been imagined and understood. As we
examine representations of Hollywood in relation to sexuality, gender,
politics, and popular culture, our chief focus will be on developing
critical reading and viewing skills and, through extensive and varied
writing practice, sharpening our techniques of argument and expression.
Texts include the films A Star is Born, Sunset Blvd., Barton Fink, L.A. Confidential, and Mulholland Dr.; the novels The Love of Last Tycoon, The Day of the Locust, and Myra Breckinridge; and artwork by Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Cindy Sherman. C. BENNETT
|
War, Peace, Terror, and the Law
(fall 2003-spring 2006)
|
This course examines the War on Terror and
related U.S. foreign policy actions through a legal lens. What are the
"laws of war" for states fighting terrorism? What constitutes a war?
When is war legally justified? What guidelines must American soldiers in
Iraq and Guantanamo Bay follow in treating prisoners? This course will
expose students to the basics of public international law by critically
examining U.S. case law and statutes, treaties, cases from the
International Court of Justice, and other international instruments.
Students will write case briefs, opinion and advocacy pieces, and a
final research project on a topoic related to course reading.
D. TYNER, W. FORK
|
Cooperation, Collaboration, Invention
(spring 2006)
|
Collective invention is a feature of most
public writing. Even when a single author receives credit, published
texts are routinely shaped by colleagues, editors, and other readers.
In this course we will study the collaborative production of published
texts. We will also collaborate on a daily basis. Students should be
prepared to work cooperatively as writers, researchers, and editors. In
addition to other assignments, each student will work with colleagues
to research, present, and write about a case study drawn from a range of
genres which may include fiction, non-fiction, legal writing, film,
drama, and poetry. Possible case studies may include Supreme Court
opinions, Brothers and Keepers, "The Wasteland," Frankenstein, Shakespeare in Love, and the film version of The Big Sleep. E. SHAPIRO
|
Finding Justice in the Law
(fall 2004-spring 2005)
|
Clarence Darrow wrote, "there is no such
thing as justice, either in or out of court." How can we test his claim
while exploring our definitions and understandings of "justice" and
those of other legal and philosophical writers? Our generation has had
unprecedented access to such highly publicized trials as People v. O.J. Simpson and United States v. Martha Stewart:
how have they shaped our conceptions of law and justice? We'll use
narrative, journal articles, appellate opinions, and multimedia to
explore and critique our (primarily criminal) justice system while
examining the roles of attorneys, judges, jurors, victims, defendants,
and ourselves in the pursuit of justice in American law. Students will
write analyses of legal and other issues, and a final paper.
A. ELY
|
Media Events: Making Stories in Fact and Fiction
(fall 2003-spring 2005)
|
This course will take a comparative
approach to three cultural forces: news media, the arts, and a wide
range of nonfiction. Using major events past and present as case
studies, we'll examine the economic, cultural, and rhetorical structures
of U.S. news media in relation to essays, fiction, histories, film and
other materials. In exploring the many mediations between "us" and
"event," we'll map relationships between narratives and information,
news and advertising, politics and memory, and public interest and the
corporate marketplace. We'll also look to alternative news reportage
and the arts as both promising and problematic counterforces to
mainstream event-making. Students will regularly conduct research,
present their writing and findings to each other, and write a research
paper based on individual interests. A. NAIMOU
|
Reality TV: Voyeurism and Survelliance in America
(spring 2005)
|
This course will take a critical look at
voyeurism and surveillance in American culture, from the
hermetically-sealed-for-display world of CBS's Big Brother series
to the Bush administration's Total Information Awareness Program.
Questions we'll ask include: Why is watching "real people" on TV so
widely popular in America right now? What Γs the connection between
narratives of voyeurism and surveillance and contemporary political
issues such as gay marriage and terrorism? We'll examine reality
television shows, post-9/11 anti-terrorism strategies, and pre-2000
stories about being watched in America. Students will write short
reading responses, longer critical essays, and a final research project
involving reality television, surveillance, and voyeurism.
T. JAUDON
|
Inventing Nonfiction
(spring 1999-spring 2005)
|
Writers of nonfiction do not invent their
subject matter, but they do use the inventive techniques of fiction
writing to shape their material and capture their audiences' attention.
In this course we'll see how they do it, reading works by such authors
as Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Frederick Douglass, and Ian
Frazier. In short writing assignments and a substantial final project,
students will experiment with techniques of invention to write about
events they have experienced and/or researched themselves.
E. SHAPIRO
|
Gangsters, Hippies, Punks & Ravers: American Subcultures
(fall 2004)
|
What do punks, hip-hoppers, and bar hoppers
all have in common? Are body artists and bikers resistors to
mainstream style or the source of it? How has the rebel chic of the
riot grrl subculture altered the course of American politics? After a
brief survey of historical subcultures such as those of gangs, jazz
musicians, and prostitutes, we will explore more recent ones even as
they multiply in number and complexity. Before undertaking a final
research project, course members will write essays in different
rhetorical modes, from description to critical analysis. In addition to
readings about subcultures, course materials will include music,
websites, and films such as Sid and Nancy and The Warriors. J. KUSZAI
|
From Brains to Clones: Science in the Media
(spring 1998-spring 2003)
|
Will cloning sheep lead to designer babies?
Will genetic research alter our intelligence levels, our sexual
preferences, our propensity to violence? Can MRI brain scans provide
insights that explain morality and religion? News reports about such
topics can change the ways we see ourselves and redefine our sense of
what it means to be human. In this course, students will write essays
that address such issues as these as they are discussed in the popular
media. Assignments will allow students to develop their writing skills
by working in a variety of forms, from direct reporting to argument and
analysis. J. MARTIN
|
Hollywood and the Art Film
(spring 2003, fall 2004)
|
Independent films: they're cheap, they win
Oscars, and they have their own cable channel. But what are they,
really, and how do we watch them? What must we know about Hollywood
filmmaking before we can appreciate other ways of making movies? And how
do various styles of writing about cinema help us perceive the
artistic, thematic, and ideological nuances in the movies we watch?
Participants in this course will practice many forms of film writing,
including formal essays, short reviews, and political analyses, which
will both expand our grasp of film studies and refine our overall
techniques of expression. Filmmakers to be studied include Sam Mendes (American Beauty), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Todd Haynes (Safe), and David Lynch (Mulholland Drive). N. DAVIS
|
True Romance
(spring 2002, fall 2003)
|
This course will pay close attention to
texts that aren't always taken seriously: romantic fiction and
"real-life" romance found in cinema, TV, advertising, and print media.
What conventions shape romantic narratives? What do these cultural
forms tell us about the meanings assigned to "romance" and "love," and
how can they help us interrogate gender, identity, and desire? Is our
understanding of real-life romance mediated by the structures and tropes
of fictional narratives? We will discuss and write about romantic
fictions ranging from Pride and Prejudice to Pretty in Pink,
as well as some things and persons which may or may not be "true,"
including personal ads, weddings, Ben and J.Lo, and reality TV.
A. BAIRD-BAIDINGER
|
The Misfit and the Mainstream: Cultural Conformity and Rebellion
(fall 2003-spring 2004)
|
In this course we will think and write about the role of outcasts,
outlaws, and dissenters in American culture. Course members will draw
on fiction, speeches, television shows, films, and their own experience
to write critical and creative nonfiction exploring such questions as
these: Why are some people set apart from society, and how does society
define itself by these exclusions? Why do some choose nonconformity
and resistance as responses to adversity or injustice? Why are we
fascinated by the renegade on the run from the law and the child who
gains magical authority? Authors may include Flannery O'Connor, Shirley
Jackson, Toni Morrison, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; we may view Harry
Potter and James Dean films as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Matrix, and Fight Club. K. ANDERSON
|
Queer TV: Television in the Post-Stonewall Era
(spring 2004)
|
As shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Will & Grace, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
demonstrate, queerness has found a space on television that remains
unmatched in other media. In fact, television has played a major role in
fostering both lesbian and gay visibility and progressive social
change. This course will combine television studies and queer theory to
consider what it is about television -- its seriality, its
broad/narrowcasting strategies, its topicality, its dominant genres --
that makes it such a productive forum for the exploration of queer
issues. We will also examine how television has historically shaped and
been shaped by queer culture from Stonewall through the AIDS crisis to
the current era of "metrosexuality." J. WLODARZ
|
Free Speech Under the First Amendment
(fall 2002 - spring 2003)
|
This course focuses on key questions in American politics and
constitutional law: What constitutes protected speech? Why, how, and
when does the government restrict speech? And when should it do so?
By critically reading major court cases and journal articles, we will
explore the ways in which courts and commentators have posed, resolved,
and redefined issues of free speech under the First Amendment. Students
can expect to examine a range of issues, including fighting words, hate
speech, incitement, obscenity, and pornography. In addition to
participating in classroom discussions, they will address the issues in
case briefs, opinion pieces, and a final project involving research.
C. HARWOOD
|
Nature, the "I" and the Object
(fall 2002 - fall 2003)
|
For the writer as well as for the scientist, curiosity leads to
discoveries. This course will engage students' curiosity in seeking a
deeper understanding of what it means to be human amid the complexities
of nature. Students will gain experience writing essays in a personal
voice about the environment, natural history, and natural science.
These essays will resemble experiments in which ideas are explored and
tested against observations made about the physical world and its
inhabitants. We will also read widely, with an inclination toward
writers who draw connections among disparate areas of knowledge, such as
Annie Dillard, E. O. Wilson, and Lewis Thomas.
S. SERRELL
|
Into the Wild
(fall 1999-spring 2000)
|
This is a course in nature writing and in
the nature of good writing. Prerequisites are a sense of wonder and a
desire to make connections between human nature and the natural world,
which we will do by writing essays based on close observation of the
world and on informed reflection about ecological and social issues.
Readings will include short essays by such writers as Virginia Woolf and
John Updike as well as excerpts from H. D. Thoreau's Walden, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. J. DOUGHERTY
|
Myths of the City
(fall 2001)
|
This course will focus on the stories we
hear, read, and see about cities in order to explore myths of "the
urban" in American life. We'll ask: why do people perceive cities as
spaces of personal renewal and self-invention? What do stories about
cities teach us about the places we live and the way we experience our
communities? How do cities shape the way we experience race, gender and
class? We'll read novels by Paul Auster, Bharati Mukherjee, and Fae Ng
and essays by Mike Davis and Joan Didion. Writing assignments will
include short critical essays and reflective essays based on students'
own urban experiences. M. WESLING
|
America Dreaming
(spring 1999, spring 2000)
|
Societies generate myths - social fictions
that may be true or false - in order to shape a common reality. In
this course we'll examine several myths that Americans cherish: the
importance of material success, the significance of the individual, our
society's openness to cultural pluralism and change, the nobility of
environmentalism, and the value of education. We'll read essays and
poetry that challenge conventional assumptions and patterns of thought.
Written assignments will include analysis, argument, and personal
essay. T. KEARNS, M. GILLIlAND
|
The Cultures of Television
(spring 2001)
|
Just entertainment? Television is much
more: a commercial enterprise, a cultural product, and a powerful
influence on the way Americans imagine and inhabit the world. This
course will approach the critical study of television not by dismissing
our pleasure in TV but by examining how that pleasure is produced and
how television situates us as spectators, as consumers, and as American
subjects. Readings and viewings will include features, clips from
contemporary programs, and articles on the history, technology, genres,
and audiences of this medium. Writing assignments will include critical
essays, "close readings" of televisual texts (including sitcoms,
dramas, music videos, etc.), and one final project on a subject of the
student's choosing. M. WESLING
|
Coming of Age
in the City
(fall 1996-spring
1998)
|
This course will examine what
it means to grow up in the American city. Using novels, films, and
autobiographical writings, we will ask such questions as these: How might
living in an urban environment influence a young persons outlook on
the world? To what extent do race, class and gender govern a persons
perception of, and experience in, the urban environment? How and when do
cities develop their own personalities, becoming living, breathing
"characters" in writing and art? Authors will include Toni Morrison,
Amy Tan, Leonard Michaels, and Joan Didion. Students will write both
critical essays on the works we consider and personal, reflective essays. N. REVOYR
|
Minding the Body
(spring 1996-spring
2001)
|
What does it mean to have a body? When does the body come to mind? When
it's hurt, exercised, endangered, excited, or admired; when it's
studied by scientists or artists; when it's most estranged from its
owner or most suddenly present to him or her. Students will read a wide
variety of literary essays on the relationship between mind and body. In
personal and critical essays they
will explore that relationship, asking the cardinal question of the
course: what does it mean to have a body?
S. JEFFERIS, A. BOEHM
|
Writing in the Electronic Age
(fall 1997, fall 1999)
|
This course explores the potential of electronic media for reading,
writing, and research. Class members will tap the resources of the
Internet and the Web in writing their essays, learning about online
sources of information and about Net culture as they pursue their
interests and share them with others. This is not a workshop in new
technologies but a course in investigative and argumentative writing for
students in all disciplines. Students should be willing to use
standard Bear Access tools for research and communication and to share
their work with one another electronically and in hardcopy. S. DAVIS
|
Reviewing Women, Women Reviewed
(spring 1995-fall 1996)
|
This course will explore the relationship
between works of art and what is written about them. We will read poetry
and fiction and watch movies by and about American women; subjects for
study will range from Gwendolyn Brooks to Thelma and Louise, from
Sylvia Plath to Tank Girl. At the same time, we will read contemporary
reviews of this work from a range of popular and scholarly sources.
These questions among others will arise: in what ways does an artist's
gender affect the way his or her work is received? How has the idea of
the "woman artist" changed over time? What role do reviews play in
shaping artistic reputations and reading/viewing communities? Students
will write in a number of different critical modes: popular reviews,
critical papers, and speculative essays.
B. APPLEBAUM
|
Rights, Politics, and the Constitution
(fall 1995-fall 1998)
|
This course examines current problems in
American politics and constitutional law and looks critically at the
languages in which they are posed, resolved, and redefined. By reading
major court cases and the work of such legal theorists as Catharine
MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Michael Walzer, students will examine
the meaning of due process, equal protection, discrimination, and First
Amendment freedoms. There will be short written assignments throughout
the semester, and a longer final research project. L. LAUFENBERG,, A. WALKLING
|
Inventing Nonfiction
(spring 1999, spring 2000, spring
2001)
|
Writers of nonfiction do not invent their subject-matter, but they do
use the inventive techniques of fiction writing to shape their material
and capture their audiences' attention. In this course we'll see how
they do it, reading works by such authors as Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong
Kingston, Frederick Douglass, and Ian Frazier. In short writing
assignments and a substantial final project, students will experiment
with techniques of invention to write about events they have experienced
and/or researched themselves. E. SHAPIRO
|
The Essay: Personal to Public
(fall 1996-spring 2001)
|
This course examines the essay as a form
with both personal and public consequences. Course members will explore
the essay in its reflective, investigative, and argumentative moods,
considering relevant issues of personal voice and public audience. They
will also respond to published writing -- essays by such writers as Joan
Didion, Nora Ephron, Raymond Carver, and Maya Angelou -- as a way of
experiencing themselves as public creatures. The course is run as a
workshop in which course members will be each other's editors and
advisors; students' own writing will be central to the course. C. CHUNG, J. BERNES, , R. ROENSCH, and others
|
Languages of Community
(fall 1995-spring 1996)
|
Language creates and defines communities,
determining whom we speak with and what we believe we have in common to
speak about. In this course we'll examine the strategies employed in
the social use of language through political documents such as party
platforms and speeches from the current presidential campaigns and
innovative cultural texts such as alternative 'zines, Nuyorican
performance poetry, and Internet newsgroups. We may also consider the
definition of a Queer community in the wake of Stonewall and AIDS, the
current popularity of talk radio programming, and what campus
publications call "the Cornell community." Students will write
critically about the texts under discussion and employ the rhetorical
techniques of those texts in writing about their own communities. C. A. CARLSON
|
Writing about Women, Anger, Culture
(fall 1998-spring 1999)
|
Xena, Thelma and Louise, Sylvia
Plath-- mad women or madwomen? This course will focus on
representations of angry women, crazy women, and aggressive women in
literature and the popular media and on the critics who write about
them. We'll concentrate on what's bugging these women, and in what
particular ways they respond. At the same time, we will read what gets
written about them in order to understand how that critical writing
codes their responses as "madness" of one kind or another. We will
look at novels, poems, movies, TV, book reviews, and web sites; students
will write in a variety of modes, including informal responses,
critical reviews, and expository essays. H. WHITE
|
Writing in the Humanities
(fall 1995-fall, 1998)
|
In this course, students may strengthen reading and writing skills
particularly appropriate to the humanities. They will also be
encouraged to reflect on what they do when they interpret literature,
philosophy, and art. Works studied may include paintings by Da Vinci
and Velαzquez; fictions by Nabokov, Jean Rhys, Conrad, and Achebe; and
philosophic writing by Plato, Nietzsche, and J.L. Austin. Written work
will include reading responses, interpretive essays, and perhaps an
experiment in philosophic dialogue. S. DAVIS, N. SACCAMANO,
|
Artworks in Controversy
(fall 1995, fall 1996)
|
The course looks at artistically powerful
works that have excited extreme responses among readers and viewers.
Focusing on such texts as Griffiths' Birth of a Nation, Riefensthal's Olympia, Ellison's Invisible Man, Ginsberg's Howl, Fugard's play Statement After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act,
and Mapplethorpe's exhibit "The Perfect Moment," we will ask what
values have surfaced in their reception and what historical and social
factors have shaped their careers as public works of art. Students
will write frequently on these issues and will be required to attend
several film screenings outside of class at times to be arranged. B. BARR
|
Body Politics
(fall 1995-spring 1996)
|
This course will examine representations of disease and health in both
medical and popular literature, focusing on writings about AIDS, cancer,
abortion, and reproductive technologies. We will seek to understand
the way in which these representations confirm or challenge medical
authority and the effects that they have on public debates about gender,
sexuality, race, and heredity. Texts read and screened may include
Audre Lorde's Cancer Journals, Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, John Greyson's Zero Patience, and Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale.
Students will write a number of short papers, both critical and
creative, and will complete a longer research project on a topic of
their choice. D. LUNCIANO
|
What's Yours Is Mine: Cultural Appropriations
(fall 1996, fall 1997)
|
One can scarcely turn on the TV, go to the movies, or open a book
without confronting some decades-old style or discourse or ideological
slogan that's been plucked from its original context and dressed up in
the garb of a new era. This course will study such strange
appropriations as they've occurred in 20th century American culture.
How, for instance, do the postures of the Harlem Renaissance get
repossessed, many years later, by the Beat poets and novelists? Why are
the idioms and styles of blaxploitation films so important to Quentin
Tarantino's ultra-hip Pulp Fiction? Why, in short, might one
population want to make use of terms that belong more familiarly to a
very different population? We will look at a wide variety of cultural
artifacts: novels, poems, films, essays, speeches. Authors may range
from Langston Hughes to Gloria Steinem to Rush Limbaugh to Green Day.
P. COVIELLO
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Nature in History, Humans in Nature
(spring 1995-spring 1996)
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Historical time and personal experience will furnish the lenses through
which we'll view interactions between nature and humans. How, for
example, did the landscape originally populated by Native Americans
shape the culture of European settlers and their descendants -- and how
has human activity reshaped that environment? How have the natural
environments in which you've grown up shaped your personal history --
and how have you reshaped those environments? In writing that ranges
from the analytical to the personal we will examine the connections
between human history, personal history, and natural environment.
Students can expect to go on one single day outing on a weekend in
September. D. TAKACS
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Last mod. 1/15/20
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