Shall I Project a World? Reading, Ethics and the Novel
Comparative Literature 1B, Spring 1996
Section 2, MWF 9-10 am
Instructor: Despina Kakoudaki
This was designed as a Reading and Composition class, focusing on the development of expository writing skills through written assignments of increasing length. Each week we focused our discussion on one novel and a combination of short stories. We explored the figure of the narrator in each text, the narrative structures or strategies, and the implications these have for our reading of ethics and responsibility.
The title of this course comes from one of the characters in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49: Oedipa Maas gets very confused about the strange things that happen around her, and asks herself "Shall I project a world?" as if to say, "I can make up a story that makes sense here, but should I?"
Shall I Project a World? Reading, Ethics and the Novel
In this class we are going to think about a superhero, a monster, a vampire, a very paranoid executrix of a very complicated will, a Hitler Studies professor, and a few other complicated fictional characters. What the texts we are going to study all have in common is that they don't have happy endings, and that they don't allow for very easy ethical positioning for the reader: Are these characters representations of certain kinds of evil? What is a reader supposed to do with them? What is a representation of evil? What function does it have in a text? And what happens if monsters and vampires and superheroes end up being less, or more, of what we thought they would be?
Required Texts
Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Joanna Russ, The Female Man
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Andre Gide, The Immoralist
Selections of short stories and poetry
Films
Nosferatu
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Requirements for the course
There will be one diagnostic paper (2-3 pages), three papers of increasing length (from 4-6 pages to a final paper of 8-10 pages) and a group panel presentation or creative project.
Shall I Project a World? Reading, Ethics and the Novel
Week 1: Introduction
Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Week 2: Andre Gide, The Immoralist
Jacques Servin, "Perversity"
SHORT PAPER DUE IN CLASS: 2-3 pages on Poe stories in Reader
Week 3: Andre Gide, The Immoralist
Ray Bradbury, "Chrysalis"
Week 4: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Man Who Was Used Up"
Week 5: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Writing Workshop: Focus on Paper Topics
Week 6: Nosferatu
Robert Aickman, "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal"
Anne Sexton, "The Ghost" and "Vampire"
FIRST PAPER DUE (4-6 PAGES)
Week 7: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Pamela Zoline, "The Heat Death of The Universe"
Week 8: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Writing Workshop: Focus on Research
Week 9: Joanna Russ, The Female Man
Sylvia Plath, "Daddy," "The Colossus," "Tulips"
Week 10: Joanna Russ, The Female Man
SECOND PAPER DUE (6-8 PAGES)
Week 11: SPRING BREAK
Week 12: Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Frank O'Hara, "Poem," "Personal Poem," "Steps," "Ave Maria," "Ode to Joy"
Week 13: Don DeLillo, White Noise
Jacques Servin, "We Met by Incredible Chance," "Still Life With Hands," "Still Life With Drugs," "Our Building Dissembled"
Week 14: Don DeLillo, White Noise
Writing Workshop: Focus on Final Paper
Week 15: Creative Projects
Last Day of Classes: FINAL PAPER DUE (8-10 PAGES)