Posts Tagged ‘What Is the Contemporary?’
A Hypercontemporary Literature Syllabus! And More!
The first week is already over and I realized I never got around to putting up my syllabi. I’m teaching two classes this semester, an all-Zoom revision of my Tolkien class and an all-Zoom survey of 21st Century Literature that I decided to focus on texts from more or less the last two years. (I also have an independent study on Gender and Sexuality in New Wave SF that’s been terrific; no formal syllabus for that one but we’re reading Le Guin, Russ, Delany, Tiptree, Lem, the Tarkovskys, all your faves.)
Thanks so much to everyone on Facebook and Twitter who flooded me with suggestions for the 21st Century course. In the end I was so overwhelmed by the possibilities I solicited suggestions directly from the students, which allowed me to craft a syllabus that was both inside and outside my usual wheelhouse, hopefully in ways that will be fun for both my students and myself. And we still get to be surely the first class in the world to study Ishiguro’s new book.
The syllabus doesn’t list the films they picked, but our class vote landed on Parasite and Soul for the last two weeks of class, an intriguing dialectic arraying the full possibilities of the human experience…
| synch | M | 1/25 | FIRST DAY OF CLASS |
| synch | W | 1/27 | Among Us game and thinkpieces [D2L] |
| asynch | F | 1/29 | Giorgio Agamben, “What Is the Contemporary?” [D2L] |
| synch | M | 2/1 | PLAY/MOVIE: Heidi Schreck, What the Constitution Means to Me (including bonus material) [Amazon Prime] |
| synch | W | 2/3 | What the Constitution Means to Me discussion continues |
| asynch | F | 2/5 | POEM: Andrea Gorman, “The Hill We Climb” [D2L] and online reactions |
| synch | M | 2/8 | SHORT STORY: N.K. Jemisin, “Emergency Skin” [Amazon Kindle] |
| synch | W | 2/10 | SHORT STORY: Ted Chiang, “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” [online] |
| asynch | F | 2/12 | Jemisin and Chiang sandbox assignment |
| synch | M | 2/15 | COMIC: Chris Ware, Rusty Brown, Vol. 1, part one |
| synch | W | 2/17 | COMIC: Chris Ware, Rusty Brown, Vol. 1, part two |
| asynch | F | 2/19 | COMIC: Chris Ware, Rusty Brown, Vol. 1, part three sandbox assignment |
| synch | M | 2/22 | COMIC: Chris Ware, Rusty Brown, Vol. 1, part three discussion |
| synch | W | 2/24 | COMIC: Chris Ware, Rusty Brown, Vol. 1, part four |
| asynch | F | 2/26 | Haruki Murakami, “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” [D2L]optional: Haruki Murakami, “A Shinagawa Monkey” [D2L] |
| synch | M | 3/1 | Haruki Murakami, “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” discussion |
| synch | W | 3/3 | Hades [Steam or Nintendo Switch] |
| asynch | F | 3/5 | Hades sandbox assignment |
| synch | M | 3/8 | Hades discussion continues |
| W | 3/10 | UNIVERSITY MENTAL HEALTH DAY—NO CLASS | |
| asynch | F | 3/12 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 1-16 CLOSE READING DUE |
| synch | M | 3/15 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 17-30 |
| synch | W | 3/17 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 31-45 |
| asynch | F | 3/19 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 46-60 |
| synch | M | 3/22 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 61-74 |
| synch | W | 3/24 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 75-90 |
| asynch | F | 3/26 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, whole book |
| synch | M | 3/29 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future and responses |
| synch | W | 3/31 | Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future and responses |
| F | 4/2 | GOOD FRIDAY—NO CLASS | |
| synch | M | 4/5 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) |
| synch | W | 4/7 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) |
| asynch | F | 4/9 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) |
| synch | M | 4/12 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) |
| synch | W | 4/14 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) |
| asynch | F | 4/16 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (page range TBD) MINISTRY RESPONSE DUE |
| synch | M | 4/19 | CREATIVE NONFICTION: Zadie Smith, Intimations (first half) |
| synch | W | 4/21 | CREATIVE NONFICTION: Zadie Smith, Intimations (second half) |
| asynch | F | 4/23 | MOVIE or TV SHOW TBD |
| synch | M | 4/26 | MOVIE or TV SHOW TBD |
| synch | W | 4/28 | MOVIE or TV SHOW TBD |
| asynch | F | 4/30 | MOVIE or TV SHOW TDB |
| synch | M | 5/3 | MOVIE or TV SHOW TBD |
| W | 5/5 | UNIVERSITY MENTAL HEALTH DAY—NO CLASS | |
| synch | F | 5/7 | LAST DAY OF CLASS INTIMATION DUE |
This Semester’s Syllabi
First day at my new job! I’ll tell you this: it’s not half-bad. I’ll be teaching two courses this semester:
Introduction to Literature: Fiction—”Contemporary” American Fiction [PDF]
“Contemporary” is in quotes above because one of the early hooks of the course is Agamben’s essay “What Is the Contemporary?”, which I use to justify a syllabus filled with slipstream science fiction texts I really like: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, Mary Doria Russell’s Jesuits-in-Space novel The Sparrow, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Ted Chiang’s wonderful short story “Exhalation.”
The Contemporary Period in American Literature, 1945-Present—Comics as Literature [PDF]
This is a new version of the Comics as Literature course I’ve taught once before, now divided roughly equally between superheroes (first third), graphic memoir (second third), and true graphic novels (third third). New on the syllabus this time around: Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Daytripper and David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik’s comic adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass.
Let’s go!
