“Art and Immortality”
Course Description
How can you represent the ultimate unknown—death and the afterlife? In “Art and Immortality” we will discover how various genres—elegy, gothic, revenge tragedy, theater of the absurd, slave narrative, historical fiction, and science fiction—offer distinctive resources for imagining death and beyond. Each unit will pair an author whose work is more typical of a given genre with one whose work reinvents or pushes the boundaries of that genre. Such pairs may include Edgar Allen Poe and David Mitchell, William Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard, Harriet Jacobs and Colson Whitehead, Kazuo Ishiguro and George Saunders, Robert Sheckley and Octavia Butler, and W.H. Auden and Emily Dickinson. We will trace how such authors turn to the grotesque, the absurd, the haunted, and the supernatural to depict mortality and immortality. This is a writing intensive course: we will practice writing a number of genres for different audiences and revising our work throughout the semester.
Course Goals
By the end of this class you will
- Develop a framework for analyzing the significance of mortality and immortality in literary texts
- Strengthen interpretive skills through close reading of literary texts
- Explore the relationship between form and content
- Understand how literary genres function through tropes and conventions, ranging from structure and archetypes to tone and mechanics
- Consider writing as an ongoing process, which includes generating ideas, drafting, revising, and polishing
- Practice critiquing others’ works in constructive ways through peer review workshops
- Cultivate strong research skills by analyzing primary and secondary sources and synthesizing them with your own ideas
Required Texts
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
Slade House, David Mitchell
Wild Seed, Octavia Butler
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders
Course Assessment
Participation
You will receive a participation grade that includes attitude, in class writing, and willingness to contribute to class discussions.
Literary Analysis—Close Reading
You will practice “close reading” by writing a two to three page analysis of one of the elegies we read in class. Your analysis should be as detailed and systematic as possible. Your close reading should discuss both issues of form—rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration, tone, etc.—and content—symbolism, allusion, irony, etc. You should discuss how what you observe in the poem exemplifies or pushes against the genre of the elegy.
Group Presentation
You will give a ten minute group presentation on one of the genres that we will cover throughout the course. Your presentation must include a visual component, such as a PowerPoint slide show. Your group should discuss 1) the key literary features of the genre 2) the genre’s historical origins 3) relevant political, social, economic, or cultural developments and 4) any major subgenres and important examples besides those we read in class. You should cite all resources you use in your presentation.
Scholarly Debate
You will write a three to four page response to two scholarly articles, in which you explain why one is more persuasive than the other. Each article will take opposing positions about an issue in Hamlet. You should summarize both arguments and explain why one better accounts for the details of the text in its interpretation.
Peer Review Workshops
You will give each other both written and verbal feedback on your work in progress. We will dedicate certain class periods to discussing each other’s work. To prepare for these workshops, you will need to read your peers’ work ahead of time and write responses to the questions for discussion.
Literary Criticism—Researched Argument
You will write a five to six page argument about the significance of mortality/immortality in one of our course texts. You will strive to make an original claim supported with evidence from the text itself and in conversation with the claims of other critics. Questions to consider include: What formal devices does the author use to represent mortality and immortality? How has the author’s choice of genre shaped these representations? Does the significance of mortality/immortality shift throughout the text? Drawing on the skills you developed from the Literary Analysis and Scholarly Debate assignments, you should perform a close reading of at least one key passage from the text and you should situate your argument in the context of other scholars’ commentary.
Stylistic Translation and Reflection
You will choose a short passage from one of the works we read in class to “translate” into another genre. One model of this is Stoppard’s rewriting of Hamlet as theater of the absurd. You will need to consider all the elements of literary style—diction, syntax, metaphor, etc. You will write a two-page reflection, discussing the choices you made in your stylistic translation and the difficulties you encountered, as well as how this exercise enhanced your understanding of genre.
How grades are calculated
10% Participation/Daily Assignments
15% Literary Analysis
15% Scholarly Debate
15% Group Presentation
10% Peer Review Workshops
15% Stylistic Translation and Reflection
20% Literary Criticism
Tentative Schedule
RGD=Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
ILSG=Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
TBG=The Buried Giant
LitB=Lincoln in the Bardo
TUR=The Underground Railroad
WS=Wild Seed
| Date | Topic | Readings | Writing |
| Wed Jan 17th | Course Introduction | ||
| Fri Jan 19th | Elegy | 1. “The Wanderer”
2. “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” W.H. Auden |
|
| Mon Jan 22nd | 1. “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” Emily Dickinson
2. “Married,” Jack Gilbert 3. “The Tradition,” Jericho Brown |
||
| Wed Jan 24th | Peer Review 1 | Peer drafts | |
| Fri Jan 26th | Revenge tragedy | Hamlet, William Shakespeare Act I | Literary Analysis due |
| Mon Jan 29th | Hamlet Act II | ||
| Wed Jan 31st | Hamlet Act III | ||
| Fri Feb 2nd | Hamlet Act IV | ||
| Mon Feb 5th | Hamlet Act V | ||
| Wed Feb 7th | Peer Review 2 | Peer drafts | |
| Fri Feb 9th | Theater of the absurd | Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard p. 11-53 | Critical Debate due |
| Mon Feb 12th | RGD p. 54-126 | ||
| Wed Feb 14th | Gothic | “The Fall of the House of Usher” Edgar Allan Poe | |
| Fri Feb 16th | Slade House, David Mitchell p. 1-83 | ||
| Mon Feb 19th | Slade House, David Mitchell p. 84-141 | ||
| Wed Feb 21st | Slade House, David Mitchell p. 142-238 | ||
| Fri Feb 23rd | Peer Review 3 | Peer drafts | Literary Criticism draft due |
| Mon Feb 26th | Slave Narrative | Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs p. | |
| Wed Feb 28th | ILSG p. | ||
| Fri Mar 2nd | The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead p. 1-70 | ||
| Mon Mar 5th | TUR p. 71-132 | ||
| Wed Mar 7th | TUR p. 133-196 | ||
| Fri Mar 9th | TUR p. 197-236 | Literary Criticism due | |
| Mon Mar 12th | Spring Break | ||
| Wed Mar 14th | Spring Break | ||
| Fri Mar 16th | Spring Break | ||
| Mon Mar 19th | TUR p. 237-306 | ||
| Wed Mar 21st | Science fiction | Immortality, Inc., Robert Sheckley | |
| Fri Mar 23rd | Immortality, Inc. | ||
| Mon Mar 26th | Wild Seed, Octavia Butler p. 1-64 | ||
| Wed Mar 28th | WS p. 65-135 | ||
| Fri Mar 30th | WS p. 136-193 | ||
| Mon Apr 2nd | WS p. 194-254 | ||
| Wed Apr 4th | WS p. 255-320 | ||
| Friday Apr 6th | Peer Review 4 | Peer drafts | Stylistic translation and reflection draft due |
| Mon Apr 9th | Historical Fiction | The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro p. 1-46 | |
| Wed Apr 11th | TBG p. 47-93 | ||
| Fri Apr 13th | TBG p. 94-158 | ||
| Mon Apr 16th | TBG p. 159-200 | ||
| Wed Apr 18th | TBG p. 201-243 | ||
| Fri Apr 20th | TBG p. 244-317 | ||
| Mon Apr 23rd | Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders p. 1-88 | ||
| Wed Apr 25th | LitB p. 89-170 | ||
| Fri Apr 27th | LitB p. 171-262 | Stylistic translation and reflection due | |
| Mon Apr 30th | LitB p. 263-343 |
