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Note: I didn't realize how many of those "urban/industrial" homework answers were written late last night or early this morning. I will make a new post to comment on them (and the pastoral homework) on Thursday. Whoomp, it shall be here!
I imagine this exam to be much like last semester's final exam. I will provide a range of possible questions with the expectation that most students will choose to answer three of them at a length of roughly 500 words each (250 minimum, 750 maximum). So the total for the exam would then be roughly 1500 words (1000 minimum, 2000 maximum).
You can begin to personalize the exam by offering possible questions to add to this list; others may want to answer them as well. Some of you also expressed interest in writing a 1500 word essay to replace the entire exam. And I have already offered to replace 1/3 of the exam (i.e. one question) for taking part in the Pynchon seminar and helping to prepare some materials for the other participants.
For all questions, please remember to reference and analyze specific authors or texts. I don't always note this below, but it's a general recommendation.
GENRES
1) Make a detailed comparison between three texts that you consider to be 'pastoral' in their genre or theme. At least two should be from the American Literature course. A large part of the question is obviously to define what you mean by 'pastoral.' And of course it would be best to choose texts that present intriguing contrasts. (Note: don't answer both #1 and #2 as they're too similar.)
2) Make a detailed comparison between three texts that you consider to be 'industrial' or 'urban' in their genre or theme. A large part of the question is obviously to define what you mean by 'industrial' or 'urban.' And of course it would be best to choose texts that present intriguing contrasts. (Note: don't answer both #1 and #2 as they're too similar.)
3) Make a "lesson plan" for the missing session on American 'gothic.' Explain what themes you would emphasize, what questions you would ask, how you would connect to previous course concepts, what exercises might be helpful, etc. (My suggested texts would be Poe's "Ligeia" and "Imp of the Perverse," Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," and David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"... but you could substitute others. Incidentally, please e-mail me and I can help you find the Wallace stories.)
4) Write a parody, imitation, or homage in the style of one of this semester's authors. (Applied to a new topic, probably.)
CROSS-HISTORICAL COMPARISONS
5) Pick a member of a certain group we studied in the first semester, then explain what he/she would think of two later (i.e. second semester) texts written by members of that same school or group. You can write in essay form or dialogue form. The most obvious examples are African-Americans and American Indians. But you could also consider using, say, Jose Marti along with Alvarez and Anzaldua. Or you could define a geographical grouping (New York city, Boston, the southeast, the west, etc.) Or a particular social class or profession. Or writers who all respond to a similar theme, or use a similar genre. Or some other type of group. (I suppose we studied most of the women in the second semester, so in that case just pick one 19th-century woman and two 20th-century women.) The one rule here is that you probably shouldn't write about Kingston, considering we gave her so much attention already.
6) Suppose you are teaching a class similar to this one. But the scope of the class is smaller (say, one semester). And the level is a bit lower (say final year of high school, or first or second year of university). How would you organize the syllabus? What texts would you choose, and why? What theme(s) would the course have? Why?
UNEXPLORED THEMES
7) An answer about literary representations of homosexuality would work; in particular I have been wondering how such representations relate to theories of American authorship, though one could ask the same for gender in general. (Note that it would be inadequate simply point out that certain authors are homosexual, and that this somehow influenced their writing.)
8) An answer about the central role that World War II plays in American literature/culture/ideology in the post-1945 era, and the different meanings it carries for different writers. It would also be possible to pose some kind of comparison to the earlier role of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Or I suppose this could be a more general answer about representations of war or military themes.
9) The influence of film on 20th/21st century American literary technique... Another version of this answer would be to explore the thematic relationship between American literature and American pop culture by citing particular texts we've analyzed.
10) Develop one of the class presentations further. The easiest way to do this would be to somehow challenge or complicate the interpretations that were presented.
11) Give a close analysis reading of one of the 'forgotten authors' or forgotten texts that were assigned for homework but never found great emphasis in our class discussion.
BROAD QUESTIONS
These are all somewhat similar, so perhaps choose just one.
12) Make a defense of American style liberalism, in response to the many questions and challenges to it raised by me as well as many of the authors we've read. It would help to cite particular authors and concepts, lest your essay fall victim to over-generalization.
13) Challenge my idea of American 'empire' somehow. Perhaps you see the pre-20th century U.S. as too decentralized to be an empire. Perhaps you see the 20th/21st century U.S. as too pluralistic or diverse to be an empire.
14) Explain the challenges of creating a national identity that is both inclusive/pluralistic and somehow unified. What about the challenge of memorializing histories of conflict between resident groups? Is such a project impossible? Is it even desirable?
15) Explain to another Taiwanese citizen what new insight your study of American literature has given you about literature/culture/politics in Taiwan. In other words, teach them how to apply what you learned. (This isn't the same as last semester's "why study it?" question. Now we assume that it's worth studying, and you need to explain more specifically how you would apply it.)
MORE TO COME!
Read: "Howl" (2592-2600) and Ginsberg biography (2590-92)
Read: "For the Union Dead" (2535-2537) and Lowell biography (2526-2529)
Read: "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" (HTML copy here, PDF scan from the original magazine article here, and there are already several photocopies in the blue basket but the TA will make more) and Melville biography (1089-92)And the final presentations by Lucille, Tady, and Caleigh/Letitia/Esther!185 (Crystal). What would Walt Whitman say about "Howl"? Try to note some things he might like and some he might not like, or maybe some things that might surprise him.
186 (Joy, Teresa). Compare the poetic technique of "Howl" to the poetic technique of "For the Union Dead." Be as specific as possible.
187 (Viola, Caleigh). Compare the symbolic meaning of male homosexual love in "Song of Myself," "Howl," and "Paradise/Tartarus." (In other words, it functions as some kind of symbol in each, but its meaning differs greatly.) Given our earlier discussions about gender roles, you may consider that it relates somehow to the idea of authorship or authorial identity.188 (Zoe, Ken). As you can see, Melville's story was first published in Harper's magazine in 1855. This magazine is still published in the U.S., so imagine you are the current editor. You need to choose one of the living authors we've read and explain how you want him/her to write an updated version; it should retain the same core themes but also reflect our lives in 2010.
Grades for the essay have now been e-mailed. I do apologize for the delay... I believe this is the longest I've ever held an essay in my 7 years of teaching! I should also confess that I find it rather strange to give essay grades as percentages. The American system uses letter grades (A, A-, B+, B, B- and so on)... the percentages perhaps give a false sense of accuracy. I believe my grades are not subjective in the sense of "arbitrary"; each essay is properly ranked within the set on a number of central criteria. I focus mainly on the ability to articulate, develop, and organize a specific thesis. (I hardly commented on English usage... if you have a specific question for how to use a certain construction, please feel free to ask.) But it is still a difficult judgment, so I think it would be more honest to admit an error range of something like 2 or 3 percent. Would that even be a "grade," so to speak? Anyhow perhaps this does not concern you, because I am told that my scale is quite high for NTHU! For this assignment the average score was about 83%. I think it was well deserved; I have been impressed all along with both your talent and your effort, and this was no exception.
Oh, and the presentations have been graded too. Except the ones going on Tuesday. The average for that has been something like 86% or 87%.
Read: Thoreau, Walden (the chapter I want is not in the anthology, so you can read here online... my assistant put paper copies for all of you in the basket in front of my office door)... and review his biography (825-29)
Read: Whitman, "Song of Myself" (read the following stanzas from pages pages 1011-55: 1-26, 31, 33-34, 37-39, 41-44, 48-52) and biography (991-95)
Reminder: Please make your post reviewing pastoral strategies in one previous author, as indicated in class last week.
[More Arizona turmoil]
No homework questions, but please be prepared to discuss.
Class will meet on the grassy area in front of the main auditorium... we could also sit on the steps. It depends something on the level of "pastoralism" you desire. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!
Read: Chesnutt, "The Goophered Grapevine" (here for printable PDF, or here for web version)... and review the author's biography on Norton 1638-39
Read: Jewett, biography and "A White Heron" (1590-98)
Read: Cheever, biography and "The Swimmer" (2408-17). I am moving Faulkner to 6月8日 and deleting O'Connor again.Read: Bishop, biography and "The Fish" (2398-2401)
178 (Carol). Briefly summarize what you have learned from previous classes about pastoral genres of writing, or summarize what you learned about a particular pastoral text. (I am using the term quite generally to include any kind of contemplation of natural or artificial landscapes, in poetry or prose. Or even just writing that has a rural or village setting.)
179 (Viola). Choose one of the authors from this list, and explain how and why they use a pastoral setting: Columbus, Champlain, Smith, Cooke, Crevecouer, Jefferson, Freneau, Irving, Detroit, Tecumseh, Thorpe, Emerson, Black Hawk, Zitkala Sa, Roosevelt, Stevens, Wright, Momaday, Silko, Harjo, Lee
180 (Zoe). Choose a different author from the list in #179 and answer.
181 (Joy). Like Dunbar's "Ante-Bellum Sermon," there is a kind of triple layering of irony in "The Goophered Grapevine." In the first layer, there are ignorant slaves living on a nostalgic, pre-1865 Southern plantation. In the second layer, it begins to appear that the slaves have a clever way of outwitting their master... but we could find that idea even in the racist Joel Chandler Harris "Uncle Remus" stories that formed the basis of the Disney "Song of the South" cartoon I showed you. So analyze the all-important third layer, which is the "1887" layer... how does Chesnutt depict Julius the storyteller and his transplanted Northern capitalist employer? How might this relate to Chesnutt's relationship to the (white) reading audience?
182 (Lucille). If there is a symmetry between the 'interior' and 'exterior' situation of Chesnutt's text, there is perhaps an asymmetry between the 'interior' and 'exterior' situation of Jewett's text. To give you a sense of what I mean, answer this... who do you imagine Jewett's original reading audience to be, and what do you suppose are their motivations for being interested in stories like "The White Heron"?183 (Winnie). Based on "The Swimmer," do you agree with Norton that Cheever isn't a great writer, and that his work is "firmly resistant to ideas"? I'm of two minds - I think the metaphor of "The Swimmer" is one of the most striking and memorable in all of American Literature, but I'm not quite sure what it's a metaphor for. I always mistake "county" for "country" in the story... is this elision warranted?
184. (Meg). Bishop's poetry does not lend itself very easily to the type of analysis we've used in this class, which is mainly ideological or sociological. (I suppose the "wise" fish could suggest something about the mind's capability to incorporate experiences, even disruptive or traumatic ones, into an organic whole of memory or history? I'm not sure.) So in this question I invite you to make any observation/analysis about "The Fish" that you like, or to compare Bishop to another of our authors.
Random Ethno-Cultural Note: Someone just pointed out to me that of the 9 officers in the U.S. "supreme court," 3 are now from Jewish families and the other 6 from Catholic families. (I don't know their actual religious practices, ha ha.) This says a lot about the expansion of "white" that occurred in the past 100 years. The question is, will this category expand further? To whom? Will it cease to be meaningful? Or will it contract?
Speaking of Athletes and Racial Stereotypes:
Vincent sent his further analysis of character types in the American wrestling league, and I forgot to post it until now... the file is here... it's quite interesting... the black wrestlers form a group called "Crime Time" and the Japanese wrestler is "sneaky."And Speaking of Athletes and Racial Stereotypes again:
Read this fascinating news story about the Phoenix Suns basketball team. The U.S. state of Arizona has a long history of racial discrimination (it was the last state to celebrate "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" for instance). U.S. national immigration policy is kind of a mess... one political party generally favors open immigration and the other party generally favors closed immigration, but the issue is so controversial that they both prefer to do nothing for fear of angering voters. This leads to a lot of illegal or undocumented immigration, and related tensions, and also benefits employers who hire illegal immigrants at sub-minimum wages. (An economic analysis would be that it is difficult to loosen barriers for the flow of capital while simultaneously tightening barriers for the flow of labor.) So anyway, the Arizona legislature decided to solve the problem by giving police more freedom to arrest illegal immigrants. This is a debatable policy in other ways, but the main problem is that it may also allow police and 'Anglo' (white) citizens to categorize all Hispanics in Arizona as 'illegal' when most are legal citizens. So in other words, it may have the effect of turning a legal distinction (citizen vs. non-citizen) into a racial distinction (white and brown). As we know the relationship between Anglo and Hispanic groups in the southwestern U.S. has been tense since the Mexican-American war in the 1840s, and even hundreds of years before that. So it's interesting to see a commercial business like an NBA basketball team take such an oppositional political stance... and I don't think we can discount the fact that most NBA basketball players are black, and may have some sensitivity to the notion of racial discrimination. As one journalist writes, "This kind of political intervention by a sports team is without precedent and now every athlete and every team has an opening to stand up and be heard."
The Chinese-American Experience:
Check out this review of an art exhibit, by a 畫家 using traditional Chinese landscape styles to paint the grandiose landscapes of the western U.S.
Reading for Next Week:
We will also have presentations by Meg/Joy and Sydney/Ting.
Momaday (2702-11 -> biography & excerpt from The Way to Rainy Mountain... you can stop after the first two paragraphs of the epigraph on 2711).
Silko (2784-91 -> biography & "Lullaby")
Harjo (2805-08 -> biography & "Call It Fear")
Erdrich (2828-30 -> biography & "Dear John Wayne")
Alexie (2851-52, 2854-57 -> biography & "Do Not Go Gentle")
172 (Peggy). Analyze the shift in narrative tone/technique between Momaday's Introduction to The Way to Rainy Mountain, and the further excerpts you're given. How might this difference indicate his own multiple or complicated relationship to the Kiowa culture? (Pay special attention to shifts in pronoun reference and verb tense.)
173 (Rea). Do you feel there is a contradiction between Momaday's sense of a timeless ethnic/geographic/cultural heritage ("in [my] blood there is something inestimably old and undying" on 2704, "there, of all places, was its small definition made whole and eternal" on 2708, etc.) and his definition elsewhere of Kiowa plains culture as historically contingent ("short-lived... from about 1740... until about 1875"). In other words, how could something be both eternal/continuous/unchanging and historical/contingent/evolving? And do you think Momaday perceives this to be a contradiction?
174 (Ken). Silko's famous novel Ceremony is similar to Momaday's Rainy Mountain, in that it focuses on a young protagonist who tries to reconnect to his aboriginal heritage (and more or less succeeds). "Lullaby" is quite different because it is framed from the perspective of the older generation. Are the metaphors of the blanket and the woman who becomes mother to her husband just purely bleak/tragic (maybe similar to Zitkala Sa), or is there some element of possible redemption here, as in Rainy Mountain and Ceremony?
175 (Sharon). Analyze the manipulation of pacing/timing in "Call it Fear." What words receive stronger emphasis, and how does Harjo do it? What different meanings could "backwards" have?
176 (Letitia). Explain how "Dear John Wayne" uses metaphors that point in several directions at once (e.g. "horde," "cloud," "film," cancerous division) to define the 'Cowboys vs. Indians' movie myth as a general tendency of American civilization. Compare Erdrich to Baraka, Cisneros, or another author we've read who finds U.S. mass-media popular culture to be a sort of ideological trap.
177 (Emma). Alexie's writing strongly differs from that of the so-called 'Native American Renaissance' that began with Momaday and Silko. Use "Do Not Go Gentle" to sketch some of these points of contrast. And what do you think Baldwin would say about Alexie's metaphor of the "Chocolate Thunder" 按摩棒?
