Read: Brooks (biography & "kitchenette building," "we real cool," "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till"), Baldwin (biography & "Going to Meet the Man"), Baraka (biography & "A Poem for Willie Best")
Homework: The following students should post a question about the text(s) by the indicated author... Ting (Brooks), Tracy (Brooks), Teresa (Baldwin), Esther (Baldwin), Joy (Baraka), Sherry (Baraka)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Homework for Class #23 (Tuesday, 4月27日）
First thing... you are all assigned to create a "wrestling entertainment" character and costume for next week.
OK, just kidding about that one.
So recall that your assignment is to work with your partner(s) to produce an "extension" to one of today's homework questions (162-171). This means either: elaboration, additional evidence, new idea about the topic, comparison/application to some other text or idea, new question about the topic, disagreement/debate or alternate answer, or answer to one of my follow-up questions. Or... something! Please comment to the previous post, since this is where the original questions/answers are.
And of course... the following students have a complete first draft essay due on 4月25日: Teresa, Esther, Jane, Ted, Rea, Emma, Jenny, Joy, Meg, Peggy, Sherry, Sydney, Ting, Tracy. Carol is 4月22日, and I believe a couple of you were trying to arrange an alternate time? (Please e-mail.) I prefer that you share the essay to me on Google Docs, but .doc, .rtf, or .pdf e-mail attachment is OK too. Thanks.
Next week's texts: This is an easier week than usual, I promise... Hurston (biography & "How It Feels to Be Colored Me"), Cullen ("biography, "Incident," & "Heritage"), Wright (biography & "The Man Who Was Almost a Man"), Hughes (biography, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers, " "I Too," Song for a Dark Girl," "Note on Commercial Theatre," "Theme for English B")
Homework: The following students should post a question about the text(s) by the indicated author... Viola (Hurston), Tady (Hurston), Crystal (Cullen), Ken (Cullen), Natalie (Wright), Winnie (Wright), Qian (Hughes), Clara (Hughes)
OK, just kidding about that one.
So recall that your assignment is to work with your partner(s) to produce an "extension" to one of today's homework questions (162-171). This means either: elaboration, additional evidence, new idea about the topic, comparison/application to some other text or idea, new question about the topic, disagreement/debate or alternate answer, or answer to one of my follow-up questions. Or... something! Please comment to the previous post, since this is where the original questions/answers are.
And of course... the following students have a complete first draft essay due on 4月25日: Teresa, Esther, Jane, Ted, Rea, Emma, Jenny, Joy, Meg, Peggy, Sherry, Sydney, Ting, Tracy. Carol is 4月22日, and I believe a couple of you were trying to arrange an alternate time? (Please e-mail.) I prefer that you share the essay to me on Google Docs, but .doc, .rtf, or .pdf e-mail attachment is OK too. Thanks.
Next week's texts: This is an easier week than usual, I promise... Hurston (biography & "How It Feels to Be Colored Me"), Cullen ("biography, "Incident," & "Heritage"), Wright (biography & "The Man Who Was Almost a Man"), Hughes (biography, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers, " "I Too," Song for a Dark Girl," "Note on Commercial Theatre," "Theme for English B")
Homework: The following students should post a question about the text(s) by the indicated author... Viola (Hurston), Tady (Hurston), Crystal (Cullen), Ken (Cullen), Natalie (Wright), Winnie (Wright), Qian (Hughes), Clara (Hughes)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Homework for Class #22 (Tuesday, 4月20日）
Woman Warrior Greatest Hits Channel: Here is the video about Boudicca, the British warrior queen
Bonus: Jane sent this link and this one, about a dance company in Taiwan that is creating its own interpretations of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
Essay Option "Launch" #1: First Draft 4月25日 (星期天) ---> Conference 4月29日 (星期四) ---> Final Draft 5月7日 (星期五)
Essay Option "Launch" #2: First Draft 5月2日 (星期天) ---> Conference 5月7日 (星期五) ---> Final Draft 5月10日 (星期一)
Other Possibilities Negotiable!
Read: 2762-71頁 (Anzaldua bio. & excerpt from "How to Tame a Wild Tongue")... Spanish translations now posted... see comments below!
Read: 2819-27頁 (Cisneros bio. & "Woman Hollering Creek")
Read: 2791-2800頁 (Alvarez bio. & excerpt from Yo!)
162 (Zoe). I need a brief summary of the politics of language usage in Taiwan, specifically as it pertains to education. Any comparison to Anzaldua, Cisneros, and/or Alvarez would be helpful.
163 (Lucille). Why do you suppose the Norton editors do not give translation footnotes when Anzaldua uses Spanish or related languages/dialects? You may notice, for instance, that all of the Spanish in the Cisneros story is footnoted.
164 (Teresa). I will make your task even more complicated; now I want you to compare the use of allusion (another term is "intertextuality") in Fuller vs. Rich vs. Anzaldua! The question is, what function(s) do the allusions achieve or perform? What are their criteria for which allusions they choose?
165 (Ting). The concept of mexicano or raza that Anzaldua discusses on 2770頁 is a tricky one. On the one hand, she is clear that this identity is not strictly cultural... for instance she says that one can be Mexican race even if one is born in the United States and speaks only English. On the other hand, to make the identity strictly biological would seem to contradict her tendency to critique standard narratives of 'pure' origin (e.g. she questions 'pure' biological gender roles & questions the false starting points and ending points of 'pure' national/imperial histories, and she emphasizes the positive value of hybridity/diversity by celebrating her Indian and black heritage). So this is a culture, but it isn't cultural (in the sense of being arbitrary and transparently legible - "I see you"), and this is a race, but it isn't racial. So... what is it? In other words, what does she mean when she says "being Mexican is a state of the soul?" (You may find her dilemma somewhat similar to that of Kingston.)
166 (Emma). What themes do the television soap operas in "Woman Hollering Creek" present, and what function do they perform in the lives of the story's women? (I think Norton's view is somewhat oversimplified.) Compare Taiwanese soap operas (foreign or imported), in both typical theme and cultural function.
167 (Tracy). Explain the narrative technique of "Woman Hollering Creek"; actually it would be quite helpful to have a chart of the various narrators. There seems to be a third-person narrator (roughly Cisneros) and a first-person narrator (Cleofilas... I suppose we may also call this the Cisneros-narrator-using-a-free-indirect-discourse as in Austen, Joyce, Woolf?) But there seem to be other narrators as well, particularly on 2821 and 2826. And what is the function or purpose of presenting the narrative in this way?
168 (Letitia). Compare the presentation of work and working class experience that Cisneros gives to the presentation given by some other author(s) we've read (e.g. Equiano, Douglass, Dunbar, Kingston, Crane). Would this class barrier preclude intellectual or political affiliations between Cisneros and thoroughly middle class authors like Bishop, Rich, Plath, Alvarez? (Or Adams, Fuller, Stowe, Fern, Dickinson, Gilman... if we are being imagine them to be still alive).
169 (Winnie). Some questions about empire... what evidence do you see in "Yo!" of a racial caste system on the Dominican island? What evidence do you see of U.S. American power extending into the Dominican Republic? What evidence of U.S. American power in the D.R. does Alvarez de-emphasize? (Hint: consult "Rise to Power" and "Foreign Policy" in this short biography of the dictator Trujillo.)
170 (Viola). How and why does Alvarez incorporate Spanish and 'Spanglish' into her story? Compare to Anzaldua and Cisneros.
171 (Sydney). Compare the relationship between Alvarez's narrator & Yo(landa) to the relationship between Kingston's mother & Kingston's narrator/alter-ego. What does "Yo" mean in Spanish, and why might this be important? And how is the "bear" is like the "sitting ghost"?
Bonus: Jane sent this link and this one, about a dance company in Taiwan that is creating its own interpretations of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
Essay Option "Launch" #1: First Draft 4月25日 (星期天) ---> Conference 4月29日 (星期四) ---> Final Draft 5月7日 (星期五)
Essay Option "Launch" #2: First Draft 5月2日 (星期天) ---> Conference 5月7日 (星期五) ---> Final Draft 5月10日 (星期一)
Other Possibilities Negotiable!
Read: 2762-71頁 (Anzaldua bio. & excerpt from "How to Tame a Wild Tongue")... Spanish translations now posted... see comments below!
Read: 2819-27頁 (Cisneros bio. & "Woman Hollering Creek")
Read: 2791-2800頁 (Alvarez bio. & excerpt from Yo!)
162 (Zoe). I need a brief summary of the politics of language usage in Taiwan, specifically as it pertains to education. Any comparison to Anzaldua, Cisneros, and/or Alvarez would be helpful.
163 (Lucille). Why do you suppose the Norton editors do not give translation footnotes when Anzaldua uses Spanish or related languages/dialects? You may notice, for instance, that all of the Spanish in the Cisneros story is footnoted.
164 (Teresa). I will make your task even more complicated; now I want you to compare the use of allusion (another term is "intertextuality") in Fuller vs. Rich vs. Anzaldua! The question is, what function(s) do the allusions achieve or perform? What are their criteria for which allusions they choose?
165 (Ting). The concept of mexicano or raza that Anzaldua discusses on 2770頁 is a tricky one. On the one hand, she is clear that this identity is not strictly cultural... for instance she says that one can be Mexican race even if one is born in the United States and speaks only English. On the other hand, to make the identity strictly biological would seem to contradict her tendency to critique standard narratives of 'pure' origin (e.g. she questions 'pure' biological gender roles & questions the false starting points and ending points of 'pure' national/imperial histories, and she emphasizes the positive value of hybridity/diversity by celebrating her Indian and black heritage). So this is a culture, but it isn't cultural (in the sense of being arbitrary and transparently legible - "I see you"), and this is a race, but it isn't racial. So... what is it? In other words, what does she mean when she says "being Mexican is a state of the soul?" (You may find her dilemma somewhat similar to that of Kingston.)
166 (Emma). What themes do the television soap operas in "Woman Hollering Creek" present, and what function do they perform in the lives of the story's women? (I think Norton's view is somewhat oversimplified.) Compare Taiwanese soap operas (foreign or imported), in both typical theme and cultural function.
167 (Tracy). Explain the narrative technique of "Woman Hollering Creek"; actually it would be quite helpful to have a chart of the various narrators. There seems to be a third-person narrator (roughly Cisneros) and a first-person narrator (Cleofilas... I suppose we may also call this the Cisneros-narrator-using-a-free-indirect-discourse as in Austen, Joyce, Woolf?) But there seem to be other narrators as well, particularly on 2821 and 2826. And what is the function or purpose of presenting the narrative in this way?
168 (Letitia). Compare the presentation of work and working class experience that Cisneros gives to the presentation given by some other author(s) we've read (e.g. Equiano, Douglass, Dunbar, Kingston, Crane). Would this class barrier preclude intellectual or political affiliations between Cisneros and thoroughly middle class authors like Bishop, Rich, Plath, Alvarez? (Or Adams, Fuller, Stowe, Fern, Dickinson, Gilman... if we are being imagine them to be still alive).
169 (Winnie). Some questions about empire... what evidence do you see in "Yo!" of a racial caste system on the Dominican island? What evidence do you see of U.S. American power extending into the Dominican Republic? What evidence of U.S. American power in the D.R. does Alvarez de-emphasize? (Hint: consult "Rise to Power" and "Foreign Policy" in this short biography of the dictator Trujillo.)
170 (Viola). How and why does Alvarez incorporate Spanish and 'Spanglish' into her story? Compare to Anzaldua and Cisneros.
171 (Sydney). Compare the relationship between Alvarez's narrator & Yo(landa) to the relationship between Kingston's mother & Kingston's narrator/alter-ego. What does "Yo" mean in Spanish, and why might this be important? And how is the "bear" is like the "sitting ghost"?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Homework for Class #21 (Tuesday, 4月13日）
Kingston Alert!!! Is it true, as I have just read in the New York Times, that it is illegal to produce a film with a "ghost" theme in the P.R.C. unless the ghost is given a specific scientific rationale for existence? This confirms the meaning of the ghost as a repressed element returning from historical memory... though here the repression is double, ironically.
Reminder: Post your Dickinson-style poems here...
Read: 1939-51頁 (Stein bio. & excerpt from Tender Buttons)... leftover from last week
Read: 2236-39頁 (Crane bio. & "Chaplinesque," "At Melville's Tomb")... leftover from last week
Read: 頁2305-19 (Norton headnotes & timeline for Contemporary era)
Read: 2398-2401頁, 2407頁 (Bishop bio. & "The Fish,” ”One Art”)
Read: 2619-25頁 (Rich bio. & “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law”)
Read: 2651-58頁 (Plath bio. & “Lady Lazarus,” “Daddy”)
[We are deleting Aimee Bender and moving Flannery O'Connor to 5月18日.]
Crystal & Viola will give a presentation on Bishop, so I will confine my questions to Rich and Plath! We will also have a presentation from Alyssa & Tracy about the representation of gender roles in the movie "Benjamin Button."
158 (Teresa). Compare Rich's allusions (to other literary authors/characters/quotations) to Fuller's allusions (to other literary authors/characters/quotations). Is their function different, or similar?
159 (Vincent). In Rich's poem, we first seem to be dealing with a domestic relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, one that may remind us something of Kingston's relationship with her mother. But then the term "daughter-in-law" begins to take a broader meaning, one that may somehow be representative of the historical condition of women. How do you interpret what "daughter-in-law" means in this poem?
160 (Natalie). Compare Dickinson's figurations of male authority ("Poet," "Majority, "One," "Owner," "Master," "He," "Man," etc.) to Plath's ("Nazi," "Them," "Herr Doktor," "Herry Enemy," "Herr God," "Herr Lucifer," "Daddy," "Fascist," etc.). Do you feel they are similar? Different? To what extent do the two poets intend personal reference vs. general reference? To what extent do the poets see their poetry as challenging or reversing these structures of authority?
161 (Carol). Read this article about the "Sylvia Plath Effect," and summarize some of the debates it has created in the psychological profession. Do you feel like there is some penetration by ideology and gender expectations here (as in the 1890s diagnosis of the 'neurotic' condition), or do you think psychology is more advanced as a science now? What do you think Sylvia herself might say about this? (You can make her words, or choose her words from one of her poems.)
Reminder: Post your Dickinson-style poems here...
Read: 1939-51頁 (Stein bio. & excerpt from Tender Buttons)... leftover from last week
Read: 2236-39頁 (Crane bio. & "Chaplinesque," "At Melville's Tomb")... leftover from last week
Read: 頁2305-19 (Norton headnotes & timeline for Contemporary era)
Read: 2398-2401頁, 2407頁 (Bishop bio. & "The Fish,” ”One Art”)
Read: 2619-25頁 (Rich bio. & “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law”)
Read: 2651-58頁 (Plath bio. & “Lady Lazarus,” “Daddy”)
[We are deleting Aimee Bender and moving Flannery O'Connor to 5月18日.]
Crystal & Viola will give a presentation on Bishop, so I will confine my questions to Rich and Plath! We will also have a presentation from Alyssa & Tracy about the representation of gender roles in the movie "Benjamin Button."
158 (Teresa). Compare Rich's allusions (to other literary authors/characters/quotations) to Fuller's allusions (to other literary authors/characters/quotations). Is their function different, or similar?
159 (Vincent). In Rich's poem, we first seem to be dealing with a domestic relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, one that may remind us something of Kingston's relationship with her mother. But then the term "daughter-in-law" begins to take a broader meaning, one that may somehow be representative of the historical condition of women. How do you interpret what "daughter-in-law" means in this poem?
160 (Natalie). Compare Dickinson's figurations of male authority ("Poet," "Majority, "One," "Owner," "Master," "He," "Man," etc.) to Plath's ("Nazi," "Them," "Herr Doktor," "Herry Enemy," "Herr God," "Herr Lucifer," "Daddy," "Fascist," etc.). Do you feel they are similar? Different? To what extent do the two poets intend personal reference vs. general reference? To what extent do the poets see their poetry as challenging or reversing these structures of authority?
161 (Carol). Read this article about the "Sylvia Plath Effect," and summarize some of the debates it has created in the psychological profession. Do you feel like there is some penetration by ideology and gender expectations here (as in the 1890s diagnosis of the 'neurotic' condition), or do you think psychology is more advanced as a science now? What do you think Sylvia herself might say about this? (You can make her words, or choose her words from one of her poems.)
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