Syllabus

Notes:

• All readings and viewings are due on the day indicated.
• Specific reading, viewing, and writing assignments indicated for each class.
• Film excerpts and films available in LAITS lab, MEZ 2.104A, under Swaffar.
• Whole films are available to presenters in video or DVD format from Janet Swaffar; you will need to sign these out. (Your grade depends on your returning them.)
• Books available at the University Coop, excerpts as PDF files on line

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PART 1: Institutional Rewriting of Social Groups and Individuals

Week 1: August 25 - 27

Wed	Rewriting in different times, places, and media Introduction to the course: Reading excerpt of Jane Eyre and comparing it to an in-class video excerpts from movie versions *Viewing Goal: Identify three contrasts between Bronte's and the movies' version of this episode. **NOTE: Introduction of Wide Sargasso Sea
Fri	Rewriting to expand an original story Assigned Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea, Part I *Reading Goal: Three passages that mark Antoinette as an outsider *Précis demonstration 1 in class: how to write a précis

Week 2: August 30 - 3 September

Mon	Identifying the social classes in Rhys's story--what empowers/disempowers Assigned Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea, Part II--End *Reading Goal: Stages in Antoinette's surrender of her independent identity *Writing Assignment: Précis #1
Wed	The feminist context Assigned Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea, Foreword and Afterword "The Madwoman in the Attic" (pdf) *Reading Goal: Reading in the evil twin SIGN-UP SHEET FOR GROUP PRESENTATIONS (see assignment directions for details)
Fri	Comparing movie and novel: Do visual media necessitate modifications in the narrative? Assigned Viewing: Two Film excerpts from Wide Sargasso Sea *Writing Assignment: Blackboard Assignment #1 due: Compare a book passage that contrasts with a film excerpt and suggest either what these contrasts imply about the way messages of the novel have shifted or argue that they are faithfully recreated

Week 3: September 8 - 10

Wed	Witches and Salem in 1692 Assigned Presentations: The Crucible *Reading Goal: What lies people tell, and why--three examples *Writing Assignment: Précis #2
Fri	Witch hunting and Washington DC in 1955 *Group Presentation: HUAC and Miller--Parallels in his play

Week 4: September 13 - 17

Mon	The eye of the other Assigned Reading: I, Tituba *Reading Goal: What changes in perspective, what additions to Miller's version *Writing Assignment: Précis #3
Wed	Rewriting to claim a lost identity Assigned Reading: I, Tituba, Foreward and Afterword *Reading Goal: Condé's objectives and rationale for inventions
Fri	Rewriting a culture Assigned Reading: Said, Orientalism, Chapter 1 (pdf) *Group Presentation: Colonizing as discursive practice

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PART 2: Cultural Rewriting in Allegory--"Updating" a Story

Week 5: September 20 - 24

Mon	Identifying how the narrator constructs his authority Assigned Reading: The Divine Comedy I, Cantos 1-16, Introduction (Sayers), pp. 9-69 + pp. 292-298. *Reading Goal: Identify at least one historical component and its allegorical meaning in each of the Cantos *Writing Assignment: Précis #4
Wed	The representation of psychological states Assigned Reading: The Divine Comedy I, Cantos 17-26 *Reading Goal: at least two examples of images that are unclear or antiquated in your view and two metaphors of punishment that speak to you as appropriate and why
Fri	Rewriting cosmology for one's own purposes Assigned Readings: The Divine Comedy I, Cantos 27-End *Group Presentation: Dante's targets

Week 6: September 27 - October 1

Mon	The representation of paradise Assigned Reading: The Divine Comedy III, Cantos 20-End (pdf) *Reading Goal: To do your own visual depiction of the dimensions in this narrative vision of paradise *Writing Assignment: Précis #5
Wed	Reenvisioning heaven and hell through the ages Assigned Reading: Lefevere, Chapter 1 (pdf) *Reading Goal: Types of rewriting and their features/goals
Fri	Dante rewritten in art *Group Presentation: Visual representations of heaven and hell at different points in time

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PART 3: Rewriting by Relocating the Protagonist's Time and Place

Week 7: October 4 - 8

Mon	Journeys as tests of courage and ingenuity Assigned Reading: Odyssey excerpt (pdf) *Writing Assignment: Blackboard Assignment #2: Your take on what was rewritten and why
Wed	The journey as misadventure Assigned Reading: Walcott, Omeros excerpt (pdf)              "Sea Grapes" (pdf)
Fri	Recasting the quest tradition as social commentary Assigned Reading: Als, "The Islander" (pdf) *Group Presentation: Packaging Walcott

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PART 4: Rewriting One's Life Script

Week 8: October 11 - 15

Mon	The price of naiveté in a duplicitous society Assigned Reading: Invisible Man, Prologue-Chapter 12 *Writing Assignment: Draft of abstract for proposed paper plus statement of research intent/research completed
Wed	The White and the Black or the Exploiters and the Exploited? Assigned Reading: Invisible Man, Chapters 13-19
Fri	Being nobody as salvation Assigned Reading: Invisible Man, Chapters 20-End Wolf, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flakcatchers (read around in pdf) Macaulay, Motel of Mysteries (pdf) *Reading Goal: Ellison redux--how times/perspectives changed between the fifties and the late sixties

Week 9: October 18 - 22

Mon	The conflicted male a la Freud Assigned Reading: Hamlet, Acts 1-3 Freud, "Passing of the Oedipus Complex" (pdf) *Writing Assignment: Abstract of proposed paper plus statement of research intent/research completed Schedule your individual consultations with the instructor by appointment (sign-up sheet on the door of my office, EPS 3.166--allow for 30 minutes minimum, more if you need it.) **NOT AN OPTIONAL ACTIVITY (See "Directions and Grading for Solo Presentation of Paper" worksheet.)
Wed	Taking Freud to the movies Assigned Reading: Hamlet, Acts 4-5 Assigned Video: scene from Gibson's Hamlet *Viewing Goal: how is Gibson's confrontation with his mother staged and what messages does that staging convey?
Fri	The intellectual versus the socially aware Hamlet Assigned Viewing: Scenes from Olivier's and Branaugh's versions of Hamlet *Viewing Goal: What are contrasts in performance of these scenes and what, if any, differences result? *Writing Assignment: compare two versions vis-à-vis the play (movie review)

Week 10: October 25 - 29

Mon	Historical readings of the Greeks--the values and messages for Germans Assigned Reading: The Iliad, Book 1 Marchand, "Down from Olympus," Chapter 1 (pdf) Schliemann, Troy and Its Remains, Preface and Introduction (pdf -- skim for representative language) MacCauley, The Motel of Mysteries, (pdf) *Reading Goal: how many eighteenth and nineteenth century Germans read The Iliad and why *Writing Assignment: Blackboard Assignment #3: what archeology, what ideology--two or three features of the PDF readings that are/are not your readings of Book 1
Wed	Dealing with death--what is celebrated and why? Assigned Reading: Iliad, Books 2-7 *Reading Goal: examples from The Iliad and parallels in how the military dead are treated in the US since WWII
Fri	Identifying the function of the gods Assigned Reading: Knox Introduction pp. 3-45. *Reading Goal: find three passages in books we have read together in which the gods express a rationale for influencing human actions and the human behaviors result

Week 11: November 1 - 5

Mon	Comparing translations: how language use renders a work accessible to other times and places Assigned Readings: The Iliad, Book 8 (PDF versions to compare: Cowper, Butcher and Lang, Chapman) Lefevere, Chapter 7 (pdf -- if you don't already have it) *Reading Goal: Identifying several poetological and ideological features *Writing Assignment: Blackboard Assignment #4: Find a passage that contrast in at least two of the three versions and suggest what these contrasts imply about the prospective readers of these translations with reference to Lefevere's observations about intended audiences
Wed	Rank, authority, and power--Greek and modern views Assigned Reading: The Iliad, Book 20-End *Reading Goal: who is in charge in each of these books; what status do they have; what actions dictate gain or loss?
Fri	Rewriting hero and warrior myths Assigned Viewing: scenes from Troy Assigned Reading: Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy" (pdf) *Reading Goal: in the sense of Nietzsche, what Dionysian and Apollinian statements or actions do you identify in the movie compared to the original and which principles dominate in the book, the film?

Week 12: November 8 - 12

LIBRARY SESSION AT PCL ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8

NO CLASSES THE REST OF THE WEEK--CONSULTATIONS ON PAPERS

Individual consultations with the instructor by appointment (sign-up sheet on the door of my office, EPS 3.166, see "Oral Presentations, Phase 3, week 12")

Week 13: November 15 - 19

Mon	Oral Presentations of papers with handouts or PowerPoint, film or text excerpts as needed (see assignment instructions)
Wed	Oral Presentations
Fri	Oral Presentations

Week 14: November 22 - 24

Mon	Oral Presentations of papers with handouts or PowerPoint, film or text excerpts as needed (see assignment instructions)
Wed	Oral Presentations

Week 15: November 29 - December 3

Mon	Oral Presentations of papers with handouts or PowerPoint, film or text excerpts as needed (see assignment instructions)
Wed	Last day of Oral Presentations
Fri	FINAL DISCUSSION **Final draft of longer written paper due on day of final: (see assignment instructions)