Texts:
1. Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957) -- Penguin Classics --
ISBN-10:
0142437255 / ISBN-13:
978-0142437254
2. Vladimir Nabokov, The
Annotated Lolita (1955/1957) -- Revised and Updated -- Vintage
-- ISBN-10: 0679727299
/ ISBN-13: 978-0679727293
3. Sylvia Plath,
The Bell Jar (1963) --
Harper Perennial Modern Classics
-- ISBN-10:
0061148512 / ISBN-13:
978-0061148514
4. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) -- Harper Perennial Modern Classics -- ISBN-10: 0061148520 / ISBN-13:
978-0061148521
5. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) --
Anchor -- ISBN-10:
0307387895 / ISBN-13: 978-03073878996
6. Don DeLillo, White Noise: Text and
Criticism (1985) -- Viking
Critical Library/Penguin -- ISBN-10:
0140274987 / ISBN-13:
978-0140274981
7. Richard Powers, Galatea. 2.2 (1995) -- Picador -- ISBN-10: 0312423136 / ISBN-13: 978-0312423131
8. Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005) -- Penguin
--
ISBN-10:
0143037749 / ISBN-13:
978-0143037743
9. Cormac McCarthy, The
Road (2006) -- Vintage --
ISBN-10:
0307387895 / ISBN-13: 978-0307387899
10. online texts (print out the primary
texts -- such as the poems in week 1 -- and bring these to class; no
need to print out required background materials)
Calendar:
Week 1: Wed Aug
25 Post-War American Poetry from Formalism to the Beats
- Required reading:
- Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"
- Robert Lowell, "The Quaker Graveyard at Nantucket"
- Richard Wilbur, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"
- Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"
- ....., "America" [also hear Ginsberg read the poem; need Real Player]
- ....., "A Supermarket in California" [also hear Ginsberg read the poem; need Real Player]
- Gregory Corso, "Marriage"
- ....., "Bomb"
- Sylvia Plath, "Daddy" (1962)
- ....., "Lady Lazarus" (1962)
- Further reading (and listening and viewing):
- Elizabeth Bishop @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- Robert Dale Parker, Edward Brunner, and Cary Nelson
- Elizabeth Bishop -- Poets.org
- Robert Lowell @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- Michael Thurston
- Robert Lowell -- Poets.org
- Richard Wilbur @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- Edward Brunner and Cary Nelson
- Richard Wilbur -- Poets.org
- Allen
Ginsberg @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- James
Sullivan
- Sylvia
Plath @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- Karen
Ford and Cary Nelson
- "The Art of Poetry: Allen Ginsberg" -- interview with Thomas Clark, The Paris Review
- “A Lost Batallion of Platonic Conversationalists”: “Howl” and the Language of Modernism" -- Marjorie Perloff, Stanford U.
- hear
Allen Ginsberg read his poem "A Supermarket in California"
-- Academy of American Poets, Poets.org
- Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassaday @ City Lights Bookstore: Part I, Part II, and Part III [mid 60s?] -- You Tube
- Allen Ginsberg reading "Hum Bom!" -- You Tube [text of "Hum Bomb!"]
- Allen Ginsberg reads "America" -- You Tube
- Allen Ginsberg reads "Put Down Your Cigarette Rag" -- You Tube
- Allen Ginsberg interview with Charlie Rose [1995] -- You Tube [from 22:30 to 44:20]
- Allen Ginsberg interview -- You Tube
- Groundbreaking
Book: Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (1955)
-- Academy of American Poets, Poets.org
- "A
Howl That Still Echoes: Ginsberg Poem Recalled"
-- Paul Iono, San
Francisco Chronicle
- Gregory Corso @ Modern American Poetry (MAPS) -- Michael Skau
- Corso reading the last lines of "Bomb" at the Rock Flats protest (August, 1979)
- Anne Waldman reading "Skin Meat Bones" -- You Tube [early 80s?]
- Anne Waldman reading "Makeup on Empty Space" -- You Tube
- interview with Anne Waldman by Waylon Lewis -- You Tube [2007?]
- American Musuem of Beat Art
- Beat Generation Video Archive @ The Museum of American Poetics
- The Museum of American Poetics
Week 2: Wed Sept 1
- Required reading:
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)
- Further reading (and listening and viewing):
Week 3: Wed Sept 8
- Further reading:
- Sylvia Plath photo album -- Peter Steinberg, "A Celebration, This is..."
- "The Real Sylvia Plath" Part 1 [review of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
by Sylvia Plath and Karen V. Kukil] -- Kate Moses, Salon.com
- "The Real Sylvia Plath" Part 2 [review of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
by Sylvia Plath and Karen V. Kukil] -- Kate Moses, Salon.com
- "Voices
of Feminism and Schizophrenia in Plath's Poetry"
-- Clarissa Lee Ai Ling, Applied
Semiotics
- "A Brief Guide to Confessional Poetry" -- Academy of American Poets
- study guide for The Bell Jar -- LitLovers.com
- The Bell Jar -- Spark Notes
- The Bell Jar -- ClassicNotes
- The Bell Jar -- Book Rags
- "'A Ritual for Being Born Twice': Sylvia Plath's The
Bell Jar" - Marjorie Perloff, Contemporary Literature (1972)
- "Plath's The Bell Jar as Female 'Bildungsroman'"- Linda W. Wagner, Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (1986)
- "On Sylvia Plath" -- Ted Hughes, Raritan (1994) [on Plath writing The Bell Jar]
- list of online articles about Sylvia Plath's poetry and prose
- article on Aurelia Plath, Sylvia Plath's mother -- New York Times (1979)
- Featured Author: Sylvia Plath -- reviews of Plath's books and books about her -- New York Times
- Sylvia Plath (1932-1963): a webliography -- Donna Jane Pridemore, Literary History.com
- list of Sylvia Plath poems online -- Stanford U. English department
Week 4: Wed Sep 15 - Required reading:
- Vladimir Nabokov, The Annotated Lolita (1955/57)
Week 5: Wed Sep 22: - Required reading:
- Vladimir Nabokov, The Annotated Lolita (1955/57)
- Quiz #3 on The Annotated Lolita
Week 6: Wed Sept 29:
- Required reading:
- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)
- Prague Spring -- Wikipedia
- Kitsch -- Wikipedia
- Kitsch -- Denis Dutton, The Dictionary of Art
- Quiz #4 on The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Week 7: Wed Oct 6:
- Required reading:
- Margaret
Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
- Quiz #5 on The Handmaid's Tale
Week 8: Wed Oct 13
- M Oct 11: Turn in prospectus for final research essay
- W Oct
13: No Class (Fall break
starts at 8:00 pm)
Week 9: Wed Oct 20
- Required reading:
- Don DeLillo, White
Noise (1985)
Week 10: Wed Oct 27:
- Required reading:
- Don DeLillo, White
Noise (1985)
- Further reading:
- "Crowding Out Death" (review of White Noise) -- Jayne Anne Phillips, New York Times (1985)
- "Conspirators" (review of White Noise) -- Diane Johnson, The New York Review of Books (1985)
- Interview with Don DeLillo -- PEN American Center
- "Baudrillard, DeLillo's 'White Noise', and the End of Heroic Narrative" -- Leonard Wilcox, Contemporary Literature,
Vol 32, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 346-365. Found in JSTOR,
through Centenary's Magale Library "Online Research"-- English --
portal.
- Don DeLillo, Chapter 9: “A Stranger in Your Own Dying”: White Noise (Twayne
Author Series: http://research.centenary.edu/english.html?v=3).
Through Centenary's Magale Library "Online Research" --
English -- portal.
- "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
- Featured Author: Don DeLillo -- New York Times
Week 11: Wed Nov 3
- Required reading:
- Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)
- Richard Powers.net -- David G. Dodd (biography, reviews, articles,
and more -- a model author site)
- "Eyes
Wide Open" -- Richard Powers, New
York Times
- Paris Review Interview: "The Art of Fiction: Richard Powers"
- "A Review of Books
in the Age of Their Technological Obsolescence" -- Joseph
Tabbi, The Electronic Book Review
- "The
Salon Interview: Richard Powers" -- Laura Miller, Salon
- "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" -- Conjunctions
- "Two
Geeks on Their Way to Byzantium: A Conversation with Richard
Powers" -- Harvey Blume, Atlantic Unbound
- "The Esquire Conversation: Richard Powers and Sven Birkets" -- Esquire.com
- "Richard
Powers: On the Novel in the Digital Age" -- interview with
Jefferson
Hendricks, Poets & Writers
- Richard Powers and David Foster Wallace reading and interview with John O'Brien -- Lannan Foundation
- Richard Powers audio reading and interview with Brad Leithauser (2007) -- Lannan Foundation
- "Probing the Posthuman:
Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2 and the Mind-Body Problem" -- Miranda Campbell, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture
- "Parody as Cultural Memory in Galatea 2.2" -- Anca Rosu, Connotations
- "The Parody of 'Parody as Cultural Memory in Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2':A Response to Anca Rosu" -- Lars Eckstein and Christoph Reinfandt, Connotations
- "Brain Drain: The Scientific Fictions of Richard Powers" -- James Wood, The New Yorker
Week 12: Wed Nov 10
- Required reading:
- Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005)
- Further reading:
- Zadie Smith -- Wikipedia
- study guide for On Beauty -- LitLovers.com
- "Love, Actually" -- Zadie Smith, The Guardian (2003) [article based on Smith's 2003 Orange Word Lecture, "EM
Forster's Ethical Style: Love, Failure and the Good in Fiction," given
at the Gielgud Theatre in London on October 22, 2003]
- Zadie Smith interview -- Kurt Andersen, PEN American Center (2006)
- Zadie Smith video interview in Stockholm, 2006 -- You Tube
- "Fail Better" -- Zadie Smith, The Guardian (2007)
- "Read Better" -- Zadie Smith, The Guardian (2007)
- "E. M. Forster, Middle Manager" -- Zadie Smith, New York Review of Books (2008)
- Reading Guide/Discussion Questions to On Beauty -- Penguin Books
Week 13: Wed Nov 17
- Required reading:
- Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2005)
Week 14: No
Classes November 22-26: Thanksgiving Break
Week 15: Wed Dec 1
- Required reading:
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)
Week 16: Wed Dec 8
- Monday, Dec 6: research essay due by 2:00 pm in Jackson Hall 307
- Wednesday Dec 8: Evaluations; review for final exam
Final Exam
