Winter 2011
ENG 398H: Critical Writing
Focal Topic: Engaging with the
Inhuman
Section 14827
Denney Hall 245
Tu-Th 11:30 - 1:18
Instructor: David Herman
Office: 409 Denney (office hours Tu-Th 2:15 - 3:15, 5:30 - 6:00, and by
appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; e-mail: herman.145[at]osu.edu
Web address for this syllabus:
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG398-11.html
Online information about the English Major: http://english.osu.edu/programs/undergraduate/default.htm
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Welcome! English 398 is designed to be a gateway to the English major.
After a brief initial review of the areas you can focus on within
current-day English
studies, we will turn our attention to one such focus area: namely,
writing critically about literature. Sampling works from the three
major genres--poetry,
drama, and narrative--we will also explore critical approaches to
studying literary
(and other) texts. In addition, you will get hands-on
practice with planning out, researching, and (re)writing intellectually
sophisticated essays of the kind that you will be expected to write in
upper-level courses within the major.
The course will be structured as follows. For the
first couple of weeks of the quarter, using Franz Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis as our case
study, we will discuss the various approaches to literary analysis
covered in the 6th edition of Stephen Lynn's Texts and Contexts. Your first
essay will grow out of our engagement with Kafka's novella via the
different approaches discussed by Lynn, though it will focus on a
different Kafka text. Then, building on the themes of The Metamorphosis, we will embark
on a broader survey of representations of the inhuman (including the
nonhuman, the superhuman, and the parahuman) in poetic, dramatic, and
narrative works ranging from the Old English poem Beowulf (8th - 11th century), to
Shakespeare's play The Tempest
(1610-11), to the classic 1957 science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man, to
Kazuo Ishiguro's 2006 novel Never
Let Me Go. As we discuss these richly various texts and their
strategies for engaging with the inhuman, we will continue to put them
into dialogue with the approaches to literary analysis covered in
Lynn's book; in this way, you will be able to hone your skills at
formulating and testing critical interpretations of literary works. At
the same time, we will maintain a focus on best practices of writing
about literature, through informal as well as formal writing
assignments, writing workshops, and peer review.
REQUIRED
TEXTS
Available at SBX and
other area bookstores:
Gardner, John. Grendel. New
York: Vintage, 1971; ISBN 978-0679723110
Hacker,
Diane.
A Pocket Manual of Style.
5th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011; ISBN 978-0312664800
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage,
2006; ISBN 1400078776
Lynn, Stephen. Texts and Contexts: Writing About
Literature with Critical Theory. 6th edition. London: Longman,
2011; ISBN 978-0205716746
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1610-11. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0199535903
Shelley,
Mary.
Frankenstein. 1818.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-0199537150
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange
Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales. 1886. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008; ISBN 978-019953622-1
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
1726. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008;
ISBN 978-0199536849
To
be screened in class on Thursday, February 17:
Arnold, Jack, dir. The
Incredible Shrinking Man. Perf. Grant Williams. UI, 1957.
Available
on e-reserve via Carmen or elsewhere on the internet:
--Beowulf. 8th-11th
century. Trans. E. T. Donaldson. The
Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors. 6th
edition, Vol I. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. 18-64.
(Carmen)
--Charnas, Suzy McKee. "Boobs." Stagestruck
Vampires
and
Other
Phantasms. San Francisco: Tachyon
Publications, 2004. 105-22. (Carmen). This story also be accessed via
Google Books here.
--Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis.
1915.
Trans.
Willia
and
Edwin
Muir.
The
Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. 7th shorter edition. Ed.
Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. 386-418. (Carmen).
The
Muirs'
translation
is
preferred;
a
different
translation
of
this text
is available here.
--Kafka, Franz. "A Report for An Academy." 1917. Trans. Ian Johnston. (http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/reportforacademy.htm)
--Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds." 1974. The Compass Rose. New York: Harper
and Row, 1982. 3-11. (http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html)
--Le Guin, Ursula K. "Mazes." 1975.
Buffalo Gals and Other Animal
Presences. New York: Roc Books. 61-66. (Carmen)
--Mairowitz, David Zane, and Robert Crumb. Graphic adaptation of The
Metamorphosis. From Introducing
Kafka.
Cambridge: Totem Books, 1994. 39-56. (Carmen)
--Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 1667. Books I, II,
and IX. The Norton Anthology of
English Literature. 7th edition. Vol. I. New York: W.W. Norton,
2000. 1815-58; 1961-86.
(Carmen). Another version is available on the internet here.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
There are 5 basic requirements
for this course, spelled out in more
detail below: (1) attending class and participating regularly in class
discussions; (2)
posting agenda-setting discussion
questions on the Carmen site for our course; (3) writing three
carefully organized, persuasively argued, and
stylistically polished essays; (4) preparing for and participating in
two in-class writing workshops; and (5) taking a comprehensive final
exam at the end of the quarter.
1. Class participation and attendance.
To be
successful, this class needs
to be a collective endeavor--that is, a shared engagement with our
focal texts--and
to that end your attendance and participation are
crucial. You will get more out of each class if you have done
the assigned reading and are prepared to discuss it. For the same
reason, more than two
unexecused absences will lower your grade for the course by one whole
grade: for example, from a B to a C. Furthermore, after four
absences you will receive a failing grade for the class.
2. Posting agenda-setting questions on Carmen. To
facilitate your
preparation and enhance class discussions, each student will be
required to
post two, carefully
articulated agenda-setting
questions on the Carmen site
for our course. You should
post a question on two different days about two different texts. All
questions should be posted 24
hours before the relevant class meeting; by the same
token, before coming to class
you should read and give some careful thought to the questions that
others have posted. Please do not wait till the end of the
quarter to post your questions!
Each of your questions should be approximately a
paragraph in length and
should zero in on some issue (or cluster of issues) that you find
important in the text and that you would like the class to address when
we discuss the work. The issue or issues you ask about could involve
matters of technique, questions about the characters or plot, or what
you take to be important themes of the work. Your question can also focus on how ideas
from Lynn's Texts and Contexts
might be put into dialogue with the assigned work.
3. Preparing for and participating in
in-class writing workshops. There will be two workshops, one on
Thursday, January 13, and the other on Tuesday, February 8. You
should do everything in your power to attend class on these days, since
there will be no way to make up these in-class activities.
4. Three essays. These essays
are to be
submitted in
hard copy at the beginning of the class meeting on the day they are
due. The first
essay is to be 1000 words and is due Tuesday, January 18.
The
second
essay is to be 1,500 words and
is due Tuesday, February 15. The third
and final essay, which should be
2,000 words, is due the last day of class, Thursday, March 10. Topics
for each essay will be distributed well in advance of its due date. In
the meantime, for general guidelines
concerning how to compose and format your papers, click here. Grading rubrics for your essays
can be found below.
These papers must represent your own work; all cases
of suspected
plagiarism will be reported, in accordance with university rules, to
the Committee on Academic
Misconduct. Plagiarism and cheating are
serious offenses at OSU and will be
reported to the appropriate officers of the university. Plagiarism is
the representation of another's work or ideas as one's own; it includes
unacknowledged quotations as well as paraphrases of someone else's
words or ideas. Penalties may range from failure of the particular
assignment, to failure of the course, or worse. For more about OSU's
Code for Student Conduct, click here.
5. A final
examination.
The
final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16, from 11:30 - 1:18 in
our regular room. The exam
will contain
three parts: (a) brief
definition questions; (b) questions asking for paragraph-long responses
in
which you identify a passage, comment on its significance in the
context of the work from which it is taken, and relate it to other
ideas we've discussed in class; and (c) a longer essay
question asking you to explore broader issues raised by our course.
COMPLETING ASSIGNMENTS
All assigned readings must be read before the date listed on the
syllabus. All out-of-class assignments are due at the beginning
of class. If an emergency arises and prevents you from turning in
your assignment on time, please contact me as far ahead in advance as
possible. In the absence of any previous
consultation with me, work handed in late will be graded down, normally
one letter grade for each day that it is late.
BASIS FOR
FINAL GRADES
General participation, posting
of
agenda-setting
questions
on
Carmen,
and
participation
in
workshops
=
20%
First essay = 15%
Second essay = 20%
Third essay = 25%
Final exam = 20%
Grading rubric for papers:
"A" papers feature compelling
arguments, closely analyze passages or engage carefully with other
features of the text, are
written in clear prose, and teach me something valuable about the
subject of the paper.
"B" papers share many of these same
qualities, but require more development conceptually or stylistically.
"C" papers feature mediocre arguments
and/or writing skills, and lower grades will be below-average ("D") or
seriously deficient ("E") in these respects.
OTHER POLICIES
Cellphones and laptops:
Please make sure that cellphones, Blackberries, etc. are turned off
before
you enter the classroom. Also, although it's fine to use laptops to
take notes
during our class meetings, I would greatly appreciate your NOT
using your computer to surf the web, update your Facebook site, etc.
Again, the more collaborative and interactive our class discussions
are, the more effective the course will be. How you handle this aspect
of our time together in class meetings will affect your participation
grade.
Special needs:
Anyone who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of
a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific
needs.
Anyone with such needs should also be
aware of the Office
for Disability Services in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307;
TDD 292-0901) which
provides services for students with documented disabilities.
The Writing Center:
All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss their writing
with a trained consultant at the Writing Center. Go to
http://www.cstw.org or call 688-4291
to make an appointment.
COURSE SCHEDULE
January
Part I. Getting Started: Frameworks
for Analyzing and Writing about Kafka's Metamorphosis
T 4
Introduction
to course and overview of English Studies; read Lynn, chapters 1 and 2,
and also Kafka's Metamorphosis
(preferred version available on e-reserve via Carmen; another version
is available on the internet here)
Th 6
Kafka's Metamorphosis
and Lynn, chapters 3 and 5
T 11 Kafka's Metamorphosis and Lynn, chapters 4,
6, and 7; also read David Zane Mairowitz's and Robert Crumb's graphic
adaptation of The Metamorphosis
(available on e-reserve via Carmen)
Th 13 Kafka's Metamorphosis and Lynn, chapter 8;
first writing workshop
The first writing workshop will focus on sample student
essays
(file versions to be e-mailed to the class). Read Hacker's sections on
Clarity, Grammar, Punctuation, Mechanics, and MLA Papers in her Pocket
Style Manual and be prepared to use those sections to comment on
strengths and weaknesses of the sample essays. Also, access the paper
template at http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/papertemplate.html
and the online
peer-review worksheet at
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/peerform.html
Read these materials in addition to the sections in Hacker's Pocket Manual listed above, and
come to
class prepared to discuss how you evaluated the sample essays. Mark any
surface errors you noticed.
Part
II.
Engaging
with
the
Inhuman:
From
Beowulf
to Never Let Me Go
T 18 Beowulf
(available on e-reserve via Carmen); FIRST ESSAY DUE
Your first essay will center on Kafka's 1917 short story "A
Report for An Academy"
(http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/reportforacademy.htm). Write a
1,000-word essay in which you compare and contrast how two of the
frameworks for analysis discussed by Lynn in Texts and Contexts might be used to
explore Kafka's engagement with the inhuman in his story. What kinds of
questions do the frameworks or approaches enable you to ask about the
story's engagement with the inhuman? And what strategies might you use
to address those questions? How does your reading of the text's
engagement with the inhuman change as you shift from one approach to
the other?
As always, double-space your
essay. Also, use your computer's word-count function to check the exact
number
of words. List the number of words at the end of your essay and make
sure that the word-count is within 10% of the target length.
Th 20 Beowulf, continued as
necessary; Gardner, Grendel
T 25
Grendel
Th 27 Shakespeare, The
Tempest, introduction and Acts I and II
February
T 1 The Tempest, Acts III - V
Th 3 Milton, Paradise Lost, Books I, II, and IX
(available on e-reserve via Carmen; another version is available on the
internet here)
T 8 Paradise Lost, continued as
necessary; also, second writing workshop: peer review of your second
essay (click here for the assignment)
Th 10 Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Parts I and II
T 15 Gulliver's Travels,
Parts
III
and
IV;
SECOND
ESSAY
DUE
Th 17 Screening
of The Incredible Shrinking Man
T 22 Shelley, Frankenstein, read the introduction
and up through the first 5 chapters of volume II
Th 24 Frankenstein,
remainder
of
the
novel
March
T 1 Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde
Th 3 Le Guin, "The
Author
of
the
Acacia
Seeds"
(http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html) and
"Mazes" (available on e-reserve via Carmen); Charnas, "Boobs"
(available on e-reserve via Carmen)
T 8 Ishiguro, Never
Let
Me
Go
Th 10
Never Let
Me Go; THIRD ESSAY DUE
Final exam:
Wednesday, March 16, 11:30-1:18 in our regular room