English 329W: Contemporary Literature Fall 2005 Centenary College of Louisiana Jefferson Hendricks

Week 1:   Aug  24

• Introduction to Class
• Allen Ginsberg,  Howl  (Parts I and II)
  
• "Allen Ginsberg"  --  Alastair Wisker,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• Groundbreaking Book: Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (1955)  --  Academy of American Poets, Poets.org
  
• Sylvia Plath,  "Daddy";    "Lady Lazarus," 
  
• "Sylvia Plath,"  Steven Alexrod,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• Further reading: 
• hear Allen Ginsberg read his poem "A Supermarket in California"  --  Academy of American Poets, Poets.org
  
• "A Howl That Still Echoes:  Ginsberg Poem Recalled"  --  Paul Iono,  San Francisco Chronicle
  
• Allen Ginsberg @ Modern American Poetry Site (MAPS)  --  James Sullivan
• Sylvia Plath @ Modern American Poetry Site (MAPS)  --  Karen Ford and Cary Nelson
  
• "Voices of Feminism and Schizophrenia  in Plath's Poetry" --  Clarissa Lee Ai Ling,  Applied Semiotics
  

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Week 2:   Aug 31        

• Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being    (1984)
• "Milan Kundera,"  Wikipedia
  
• "Milan Kundera,"  Jan Čulík,  U. of Glasgow
• "The Joke's On Us"  --  Howard Jacobson,  The Guardian  (on the lack of irresponsibility in modern fiction)
  
• Further reading: 
  
• "Clarifications, Elucidations: An Interview with Milan Kundera, "  Lois Oppenheim,  Review of Contemporary Fiction
  
• "Unbearable Stardom,"  Adam Thirwell,  The New Statesman
• "Betrayal as a Flight from Kitsch in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being"  --  Jolanta W. Wawrzycka, Radford U. 
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being  --  SparkNotes
• Quiz #1

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Week 3:  Sept 7         

• Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale   (1985) 
  
• "Margaret Atwood"  --  Faye Hammill,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• The Handmaid's Tale  --  Wikipedia
  
• Further reading:
  
• Interview with Margaret Atwood about art and politics  --  Marilyn Snell, Mother Jones
• "Spotty-Handed Villainesses: Problems Of Female Bad Behaviour In The Creation Of Literature"  --  Margaret Atwood
• Study Guide to The Handmaid's Tale  --   Paul Brians,  Washington State U.
  
• study questions and an interview with Atwood about The Handmaid's Tale  --  Random House
• "The Politics of Language: A Device of Creativity and Power in Margaret Atwood's Novel The Handmaid's Tale"    --  Gabriele Twohig,  U. of Essen   (pdf file)
  
• The Handmaid's Tale  --  SparkNotes
• Quiz #2

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Week 4:   Sep 14        

• Don DeLillo, White Noise   (1985)
• "Don DeLillo"  --  Stephen Burn,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• "Don DeLillo"  --  Jeffrey MacIntyre,  Salon
• Further reading:
• "Don DeLillo's White Noise:  The Natural Language of the Species"  --  Cornel Bonca,  College Literature
  
• "We Simply Walk Towards the Sliding Door:  White Noise as a Postmodern Ars Moriendi"  --  Mikko Kallionsivu
  
• "Circuits, Simulations and Viruses: A Case Study of Media Brandscapes"  --  Paul Privateer, Applied Semiotics
  
• "Television and Literature: David Foster Wallace's Concept of Image-Fiction, Don DeLillo's White Noise and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland"  --  Volker Hummel
• "White Noise"  --  SparkNotes
  
• "White Noise"  --  ClassicNote
• Quiz #3
  
  

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Week 5:    Sep 21:      

• Thomas Pynchon, Vineland    (1990)
  
• "Thomas Pynchon"  --  Kyle Smith,  St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture
• Further reading:
  
• "Totaling Postmodernism:  Master-narratives in Pynchon's Vineland"  --  Bruce A. Sullivan
• "Cultural Trauma and the 'Timeless Burst': Pynchon's revision of Nostaligia in Vineland"  --  James Berger, Postmodern Culture
• "Television and Literature: David Foster Wallace's Concept of Image-Fiction, Don DeLillo's White Noise and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland"  --  Volker Hummel
• "The President's Emergency War Powers and the Erosion of Civil Liberties in Pynchon's Vineland"  --  David Thoreen,  University of Oklahoma Law Review
• A Thomas Pynchon Chronology  --  Karl Stolley, Milliken U. 
  
• "Invisible, Inc."  --  Scott McLemee
• Quiz #4

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Week 6:    Sep 28:        

• Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient  (1992)
  
• "Michael Ondaatje"  --  Peter Easingwood,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• "The English Patient"  --  Robert Clark, The Literary Encyclopedia
  
• For further reading: 
  
• "An Interview with Michael Ondaatje,"  Gary Kamiya,  Salon
  
• "Ondaatje's The English Patient and Altered States of Narrative,"  Beverly Curran,  CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
• "Ondaatje's The English Patient and Rewriting History,"  Stephanie Hilger,  CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
• "Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, 'History', and the Other,"  Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
• "Post-Nationalism and the Cinematic Apparatus in Minghella's Adaptation of The English Patient,"  Hsuan Hsu,  CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
• "The English Patient Reposed in His Bed Like a [Fisher?] King':  Elements of Grail Romance in Ondaatje's The English Patient"  --  Bill Fledderus,  Studies in Canadian Literature
• "The English Patient"  -- SparkNotes
  
• Quiz #5

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Week 7:  Oct 5        

• Ernest Gaines,  A Lesson Before Dying  (1994)
• "Ernest Gaines"  --  Southern Literary Review
• "I Hear the Voices...of My Louisiana People:  A Conversation with Ernest Gaines"
  
• Meeting Ernest Gaines  --  William Ferris,  Humanities
  
• Toni Morrison
• "On The Backs of Blacks,"  Time Magazine  (1993)
• Morrison's Nobel Prize Lecture  (1993)
• "Toni Morrison"  --  Wikipedia
  
• "Toni Morrison"  --  A. Yemisi Jimoh,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• Further reading: 
  
• "A Melus Interview:  Ernest Gaines"  --  Wolfgang Lepschy,  MELUS
• "A Lesson Before Dying"  --  SparkNotes
  
• Quiz #6

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Week 8: 

Monday October 10:  first essay due by 2:00 pm in Jackson Hall 307 

(Mid-term grades due by noon  Wed. Oct. 12) 

W  Oct 12:     No Class    (Fall break starts at 8:00 pm) 

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Week 9:    Oct 19  

• Donna Tartt, The Secret History  (1992) 
  
• "Donna Tartt,"  Lindsay Sullivan,  The Literary Encyclopedia
• Further reading: 
  
• "Smart Tartt"  --  Vanity Fair, 1992
• interview with Donna Tartt  --  ReadingGroup Guides.com
• interview with Donna Tartt  --  Robert Birnbaum,  Identity Theory (2002) 
  
• Donna Tartt fan page
  
• Quiz #7     (through Book I:  Chapters 1-5)

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Week 10:    Oct 26:        

• Donna Tartt, The Secret History  (1992)  
  
• Further reading: 
  
• "Peter Mullan Deconstructs Donna Tartt's The Secret History"  --  Peter Mullan,  The Guardian  (four-part series)
  
• "Team Spirit: Memories of Being a Freshman Cheerleader for the Basketball Team" (from "Basketball Season," a memoir) -- Donna Tartt, Harper's
• "My Friend, My Mentor, My Inspiration"  --  Donna Tartt, Oxford American
  
• "Heaven on a Hummingbird's Wing"  --  Donna Tartt,  The Guardian
• Quiz #8  (Book II:  Chapters 6-8)  
  

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Week 11:    Nov 2        

• Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country  (1985)
  
• "Bobbie Ann Mason"  --  short bio from Bedford/St. Martin's
  
• "An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason"  --  The Missouri Review
  
• "Big Dreams for Little Women"  --  Bobbie Ann Mason, Salon  (on Louisa May Alcott and her novel)

•  Further reading (and listening):
  
• "Winning Her Father's War"  (review of In Country)  --  Joel Conorroe, New York Times
• "Bobbie Ann Mason's Border States"  --  Mervyn Rothstein, New York Times
• review of In Country --  Stephanie @ Submerged Truth  (a recent Centenary graduate) 
• "Bobbie Ann Mason's Portrayal of Modern Western Kentucky"  --  Judy Aycock-Simpson, Tennessee Technological U. 
  
• "Bobbie Ann Mason's New Kentucky Home"  --  Annita J. Turpin, Roanoke College
• "Changing Roles and Finding Stability:  Women in Bobbie Ann Mason's Shiloh and Other Stories"  --  Tina Bucher, U. of Tennessee
• "Mason's Characters Get Some College"  --  Scott Vander Ploeg, Madisonville Community College
• review of Understanding Bobbie Ann Mason by Joanna Price  --  Barbara Marshall,  Liverpool Community College 
  
• hear Bob Edwards's interview with Bobbie Ann Mason on NPR -- (on Mason's 2001 collection of short stories Zigzagging)
  
• "What Did We Learn From VietNam?"  --  Salon   (Bobbie Ann Mason, Michael Lind, Philip Caputo, Jonathan Schell and others talk about the war)
•  "On The Road Again: The Female American Road Trip" --  Elissa Pugh,  Sweet Briar College
  
• "Bobbie Ann Mason"  --  song lyrics by Mark D. Sanders 
• Quiz #9

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Week 12:     Nov 9     

• Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2   (1995) 
  
• Further reading: 
  
• The Richard Powers site -- David G. Dodd  (biography, reviews, articles)
• "Eyes Wide Open" -- Richard Powers, New York Times
• "A Review of Books in the Age of Their Technological Obsolescence" -- Joseph Tabbi, The Electronic Book Review
• "An Interview with Richard Powers"  -- Jim Neilson, Review of Contemporary Fiction
• "Richard Powers:  Industrial Evolution"  -- Michael Tortorello, Rain Taxi
• "The Last Generalist: An Interview with Richard Powers"  -- Jeffrey Williams, Cultural Logic
• "A Dialogue:  Richard Powers and Bradford Morrow"  -- Conjunction
• "Galatea 2.2--A Report"  -- Winter Elliot, U. of Georgia          
  
• Quiz #10

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Week 13:  Nov 16  

• A. S. Byatt, Possession  (1990)
  
• Further reading:
  
• Byatt "official" home page
• A. S. Byatt page @ British Council
• "Limeade Seas and Bloody Cobblestones" -- interview with Byatt -- Laura Miller, Salon
•  Possession  --  ReadingGroup Guides.com
  
• "What Possessed A.S. Byatt?"  --  Mira Stout, New York Times                       
  
• Annotations to A. S. Byatt's Possession  --  San Jose State U. 
  
• Summary of Possession  --  Michael McGoodwin
• Quiz #11

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Week 14:        No Classes November 21-25:  Thanksgiving Break  

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Week 15:  Nov 30    

• A. S. Byatt, Possession  (1990)
• Further reading:
• "A. S. Byatt's Possession -- Postmodern or Post-Postmodern?"  --  Jessica Leader
• "An Empty Clean Bed:" Whiteness, Desire and Fear in A. S. Byatt's Possession"  --  Felicity Rose
• "The Fallen Nature of Narrative and Knowledge -- Fragmentation and Byatt's Possession"  -- Katherine Lesch
  
• "On A. S. Byatt's Possession:  A Romance"  --  Trudy Mercer
• "Habitable Worlds and Literary Voices:  A. S. Byatt's Possession as Self-Conscious Realism"  --  Merja Polvinen,  U. of Helsinki
  
• "Color and Identity in A. S. Byatt’s Possession"  --  Stephen Dondershine,  San Jose State U. 
  
• "Three at One Blow:  Using Possession to Introduce Theory"  --  Julia Whitsitt, CEA Critic
• "A. S. Byatt's Possession for British and for American Readers"  --  Helge Nowack,  Regensburg U.
  
• Quiz #12

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Week 16: 

Monday, Dec. 5:  2nd essay due by 2:00 pm in Jackson Hall 307 

W   Dec 7:  TBA

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