Gone To Look For America

Maybe I will look here first?

Oh, and nobody wants to waste the summer reading Norton Anthologies, but may I recommend the following?

-Toni Morrison, Beloved (novel)
-David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (novel)
-Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan (finance/philosophy)
-The Wire (television drama)
-Arrested Development (television comedy)

因為這裡我的招聘者會看, 所以我必須寫這個郵件使用秘密代碼. 我稱之為"中文." 妳們都太火辣和太聰明.（你們也是.）我給妳們我所有的愛和最良好的祝愿美好的生活！

Exam lowlights/highlights

Note for Late Finishers: Intense deadline pressure is the biggest risk factor for plagiarism. I mention this because I have already read three answers on this exam that relied on unattributed direct quotation of internet sources. Seriously, I taught American students for six years... I'm like Sherlock Holmes for this. Don't spoil all of the goodwill from last week. If you think a source is interesting, cite it and make a comment about it.

A Happier Note: I've read about half of the exams now, and here are the two best answers so far...

Question 15: American’s cultural imperialism sells their value, perspective and attitude successfully to most countries. And it is clear that Taiwan has been severely affected by American pop culture, especially movie. Some ideas and words in Taiwanese have exactly the same meaning in America. For example, “a civilized country” should have a democratic government which cares about people’s human rights, well-developed technology and free market economy. In addition, Taiwanese tend to see the world through American’s eyes. We accept the way how American interprets the world include many kind of stereotype toward other countries. So we want to jump out from the framework that America gives us; people start to believe United States is an evil empire who wants to take all sources of petroleum under control. However, I jumped into the framework and study it in American Literature class; it’s quite interesting for me to observe Taiwanese culture through American’s viewpoint.

In this course, I found out the condition of Taiwanese aboriginal and Native American is quiet similar. However, it seems Native American is an important issue in American literature; however, aboriginal literature hasn’t been mentioned a lot in our literature class in Taiwan. It makes me start to perceive the relationship between Han groups and aboriginal who either had been forced to live in mountains or assimilated with Han groups. Taiwanese aboriginals group are very inferior because their tribes are usually small and distant after the oppression of new comer. A single tribe is hard to arouse attention, but it’s hard for them to connect together. In Taiwan’s media, the reports related to Native Taiwanese are usually about their Harvest Festival, accident caused by drunk or aboriginal athletic star. These images of aboriginal enhance our stereotype of them; and they might also fit themselves into the frame and miss other kinds of possibilities. Their distinct culture is losing; nevertheless, government assigns ministry of tourism instead of ministry of culture to provide them aid and help them promote their festival and dancing which is just the surface not the core of their culture. In the end, everyone can join their celebration ceremony and pretend that we understand aboriginal culture profoundly.

There are some aboriginal writers publish their works after Taiwanese aboriginal literature start to prevail around 1980 with the native movement. They express their feeling of double-consciousness and contradiction in their work like Native American writers. But I want to discuss how authors in Han group present aboriginal characters. Despite few authors who can point out struggle and difficulties that aboriginal face throughout the history, we can divide aboriginal characters into three types in most stories. First of all, the descriptions of Taiwanese aboriginals recorded by Han people during the Ching dynasty are usually savage and brutal as the image of American Indian in prior literature work about American frontier. Second one is similar to the concept of Emerson’s noble savage. The story, which might appear in children’s or teenager’s book, is usually related to aboriginal legend, love or friendship between Han people and aboriginals. And they live happily after in the tribe. The other one appears in novels of late 20^th century and the very beginning of 21 ^th century. These stories usually talk about the success of aboriginals in Han society; and the characters are usually Han-lization. They try to integrate with Han groups and totally accept and appreciate the value in Han society. I think these writers simplify the process of integration as government and create an ideal condition despite those complicated problems of aboriginals. In other words, the real life of aboriginal is not in their concerned, because they try to understand aboriginal through the aspect of Han. The difference between ethnic has been deliberately ignored in those novels, and the author just depict an imaginary perfect society of Taiwan.

In the course, I learned one event could have multiple features when you stand on different aspect. After reading essays of American minority groups, I figured out that most people in Taiwan seldom mind the problems or dilemma of aboriginals. We judge them by the impression given by the mass media and feel reluctant to face their misery which might cause by our ancestors. Fortunately, people pay more attention on the issue of preserving aboriginal culture in recent years. Aboriginals also start to speak out for themselves through writing, music or politics. Some of them or scholars try to rebuild aboriginal language system and traditional custom. Taiwanese of majority Han groups should care more about our land and other ethnic groups; or they will mournfully looking at their culture swallowing by the mainstream culture before we notice.

Question 4:

A BAND

A band is a band but not a band. No rubber, no drum, no noisy rectangle stuck in the broken palm. No color was seen. What does it want if the pride no longer necessary. A band is everything.

A MOUTHFUL OF MUSIC

White words against dark black color.

Speakers upon dusty table. A man, a woman, and a group of people.

The tenderness along the pages frightens the motion of fingers, and in the corner hides the wall that shakes the late night air in the sleepless city. How about a drink. Loneliness in plural form makes cheerful singularity, and what if imagination is a crime, what if nothing breaks the regularity. Will the jazz still be humble and will the blues still be red. Red is not a color but a jumping wide.

A piece of metal strikes. There, there is nothing neglected, not a blissful wedding more triumphant than a growing melody. Step forward step forward toward the edge where everything falls.

This is not for you, but please and please not talk to when.

This is so not this.

A SEDUCING PILLOW

A bowl is larger than a pounding fist, and it is necessary to hold onto the petals that dance like the girls in front of the pond that rains.

A mountain is shoveled with a pair of pants. To be a glass of ocean even to smell beautiful is no simple task. A quiet sleeper suffers immensely from the insomnia, a flock of sheep was kept for the volcano and the thick island is all that one can see.

GREEN TEA

Green tea means does it my dream it means temporality. A sucker and a lamp and a pair of scissors mean no more than the less it means morality, morality is sometimes that does false.

Green tea is not only green but even strong in its tenderness. A few changes have been conducted, lie to anything that is relevant and anything not meaning but changing.

OLD BOY

Violence has been beautified. If the window was not broken, if the secret was not told, if the river was dry. The scene would be less bloody and more delighted, if the climax comes lower is good, scarcely any difference. Save one bite for dinner.

A green sweater and a narrow escape from the pineapple.

Awake, as how it should be ended should be ended. Press the button, no need to be hard, but slightly touch and let out the fancy light. What lies beneath, what lies beneath is the ugly truth that stands between the CD covers that is all white, all white and blind.

Brownie is not made of cats. The boots and the scarves and the lollipops are close and close enough. Tissue is another kind of extravagance, and the color of the tongue is round and round as the most obvious icon on the table. No need to be careful.

MOBILE PHONES

Two makes none. A singing joy tumbles in front of a bed. What is called language is dear to me. The tiger speaks finer English, finer and finer English.

A TOILET

A channel, an ivory white, a dirt, a wondering mind.

EYE SHADOW

It was in the drawer, eye shadow in the drawer. Humid smell expresses a sense of responsibility. Spoil it, spoil it, and no regret until the cockroaches meet next to next to the practical money. The second best thing is to cut the decision without a piece of tragic hesitation.

No comedy provided, and a little little little good is no less less fun than a rainy dog or cat.

No nonsense is being handed that a smirk is a dandy. If a clock walks high, if a coin drops dead, if a pill book wine, then no friend will be browsing. A mustache upon sings, making a plastic machine, making a dreadful sound of it.

謝謝你們!（或謝謝妳們?)

I had a wonderful time at your graduation ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday, and at the Pynchon seminar on Tuesday. I don't know how you're able to maintain your focus for exams during this (post-)celebration week, but I definitely look forward to reading them.

Also, OMG, the most interesting thing happened in my home state of South Carolina. Pynchonites will love the various conspiracy theories here; the others may consider the race-relations angle... My take on this Wikipedia rundown of possible explanations... why is it somehow the least plausible explanation of this electoral result, that black voters in a party primary for a state election their party cannot possibly win, would choose to send a message to their party's establishment candidate (who is an unpopular jerk) by going to the polls and choosing, in effect, "none of the above"? But no, I suppose it would take fictional Portuguese people to think of something like that.

Homework for Class #29 (Tuesday, 6月8日）

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!

Homework for Class #28 (Tuesday, 6月1日）

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%.

Homework for Class #27 (Tuesday, 5月25日）

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!

Homework for Class #26 (Tuesday, 5月18日）

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?

Homework for Class #25 (Tuesday, 5月11日）

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?

Homework for Class #24 (Tuesday, 5月4日）

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)

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)

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"?

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.)

Homework for Class #20 (Tuesday, 4月6日）

First and most importantly, here is the remainder of Peggy's video.

I also want to wish you many happy holidays... Spring break holiday, 清明節, Christian Easter holiday,
פסח (Jewish Passover holiday), and of course "April Fool's Day"!

We will begin with the Emily Dickinson poems next week and make some comparison to the more modern writers. We will also have a presentation about Dickinson by Winnie & Carol.

Read: 1682-95頁 (Gilman bio. & "Yellow Wallpaper")... I think you will really like this
Read: 1939-51頁 (Stein bio. & excerpt from Tender Buttons)... I hesitate to use the word "read" for this book... you should certainly pass your eyes over the words or better yet sound them out loud. Pick a couple of the little sections and read with closer attention. But don't expect to "understand" what you read in the conventional way.
Read: 1990-93頁, 1997-99頁 (Stevens bio. & "The Snow Man," "A High-Toned Christian Woman," "The Emperor of Ice-Cream," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird")
Read: 2236-39頁 (Crane bio. & "Chaplinesque," "At Melville's Tomb")

150 (Clara). The 'thesis' of "The Yellow Wallpaper," and its refutation of the medical and ideological assumptions of the so-called 'rest cure' treatment, is not well hidden (see 1684頁: "I believe that congenial work with excitement and change, would do me good"). Maybe that's why this story is commonly assigned to high school students in the U.S. Nor is Gilman particularly subtle about describing her inventive writing as an alternate form of 'work' that creates 'excitement and change' in her life and gives her a sense of autonomy (see 1694頁: "No person touches this paper but me"). That said, I think this story is quite remarkable in its technical accomplishment. So instead of explaining that the wallpaper is equivalent to writing paper, and serves as a projecting screen for the narrator's psyche, and so forth, point our attention to a few technical details that show how Gilman unfolds the narrator's psychological development. On 1688頁, Gilman writes: "I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws... that I ever heard of." So what I am saying is, explain some of the laws of design that arrange "The Yellow Wallpaper."
151 (Crystal). Read Norton's excerpt from Roosevelt's book The Strenuous Life ( 1860-63頁) and give us a brief summary. You might also remind us about the related ideas we read last semester in Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier" (1652-57頁). Finally, relate the fears of Turner and Roosevelt that American men might develop 'nervous disorders' in modern city life to the gender-based diagnosis and treatment of 'nervous disorders' depicted in Gilman's story.
152 (Emma). Describe your experience of reading Tender Buttons. Compare it to some other odd experience (related to literature/art or otherwise... just don't compare it to your experience of viewing cubist paintings, ha ha.)
153 (Caleigh). The literary experiments in Tender Buttons have many purposes and outcomes; clearly it is not 'only' a feminist project. However given that this has been our recent subject, explain how Tender Buttons could yield a feminist message. Or point to a few sentences/sections in particular that seem to do so.
154 (Sharon). Since you did this so well with Lee, make some observations about Stevens' poetic technique. How is it similar or different to other poems we've read in this class, or that you've read elsewhere?
155 (Lucille). During the 1800s, poetry became an increasingly 'feminized' activity, so far as the broader U.S. culture was concerned. How might the writing style of Stevens' poetry be an attempt to unfeminize it? (You might also answer the same question for Ezra Pound). And give us an analysis of the way male and female roles are represented in "Christian Woman," "Ice Cream," and "Blackbird."
156 (Iris). Based on your viewing of Modern Times, do you think "Chaplinesque" is a good poetic translation of Chaplin's style of acting? Why or why not? As for Crane, what qualities of Chaplin does he find compelling or identifiable?
157 (Jenny). Read the Norton biography of Herman Melville (1089-92頁) and explain why Crane would HM's his name in a poem about shipwrecks, embassies, undelivered messages, and heterodox views of religion. Furthermore, why would Crane, whose homosexuality was something of a controversy, affiliate himself with Melville? (A more obvious affiliation with the homosexual poet Walt Whitman occurs elsewhere in Crane's poetry.)

Homework for Class #19 (Tuesday 3/30)

I enjoyed our discussion of Woman Warrior today. I'm happy that we opened many possible avenues for further analysis; as I said you can consider any of those questions as a potential essay topic.

Reminder: Please write your group posts from today's questions below.

Next Week's Presentations: Jane & Rea, Peggy

Next Week's Reading:
- Adams, “Remember the Ladies” letter + Norton biography on 頁300-01
- Fern, “Male Criticism” + Fresh Leaves Review + biography (頁799-803)
- Fuller, “The Great Lawsuit” + biography (頁736-47, but skip the long paragraph about Zinzendorf at the bottom of 頁743 and the section on Goethe that runs from the middle of 頁746 to the top of 頁747)
- Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (章26: “Death”) + Norton biography (頁764-67)
- Dickinson #207, #260, #348, #620, #764, #788 + biography (starts on 頁1197)

The Adams reading is here (or here for view of the original manuscript) and the Stowe reading is here. But I asked the TA to make some photocopies of these, so they might be available by tomorrow.

Bonus: This article about a "mixed ethnicity" contestant on a Chinese TV singing competition is interesting in light of our discussions about identity in Woman Warrior.

146. (Joy) Should the unpublished personal letters of someone (e.g. Adams) who can't spell properly be considered "literature"? Why or why not? The other thing you should do is make a short outline of the letter to indicate the sequence of topics Adams discusses.
147. (Ken) Why does Fern focus both the "Male Criticism" essay and the false review of Fern Leaves on ad hominem attacks? (First on the New York Times reviewer, and then on herself.) Also, what do you suppose she means by a "woman's book" or "lady book," considering that she has also indicated that neither the subject matter of a book or even the name of the author are reliable indicators of gender?
148. (Lucille) Why does Fuller insist on sexual celibacy for the 'new woman'? How does she use Emersonian vocabulary to argue this point? How does she use 'cultural tourism'?
149. (Tady) Compare the feminine power of Stowe's Little Eva to the types of feminine power discussed in Fuller's "Radical Dualism."
Q. (Teresa) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #207, "I taste a liquor never brewed."
Q. (Tracy) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #260, "I'm nobody! Who are you?"
Q. (Vincent) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #348, "I would not paint - a picture."
Q. (Viola) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #620, "Much Madness is divinest Sense."
Q. (Winnie) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #764, "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun."
Q. (Zoe) Ask a question or make a comment about Dickinson poem #788, "Publication - is the auction."

Homework for Class #18 (Tuesday 3/23)

Reminder: Post answers to group questions here (by Friday)
Reminder: Finish Woman Warrior
Reminder: The following students need to post new questions to the blog (by Monday night): Alyssa, Emma, Esther, Iris, Jane, Jenny, Ken, Letitia, Lucille, Meg, Natalie, Peggy, Qian-Yu, Rea, Sherry

Presentation: Sharon (Lee's "Persimmons" and brief analysis)

As for my homework, I was finally able to offer some additional replies of my own to the Chaplin/Jolson thread and the Harte/Pound/Far/Song/Lee thread. I apologize for the delay... you should read them when you get a chance. I was inspired by some of your ideas in class discussion today; I am surprised how much the thematic material of the past few weeks has begun to cohere together. Your essays may be difficult to write, and your presentations may require warrior courage, but you definitely must admit that there are already many suitable topics floating around!

Bonus: A useful timeline of Chinese-American history.
Bonus: One of you pointed me to this musical theater production about the early Chinese-American immigrant experience. I can't remember who... I'm sorry... please claim credit so we know who to thank!
Bonus: Ken sent this great video urging Taiwanese-Americans to participate in the 2010 U.S. Census. Three thoughts. First, this is very relevant to the discussion we've been having in class about the complex ways in which social identities are generated. Second, I actually worked for the U.S. Census Bureau the last time, in 2000... I have some funny stories, but not quite this funny. Third, wow, that video reminded me of some things I love about the U.S.A. As much as I talk about racism past and present, on a relative basis there is no country more heterogeneous and very few that are so open and accepting.
Bonus: Here and here are the two most famous American movies about "ghosts." I also found the comparisons in this Wikipedia article quite helpful. Perhaps we can use Freud's theory as a general rule: a ghost is something "repressed" (psychologically, ideologically, etc.) from our ordinary experience that "returns" as a kind of obsession. Or maybe this doesn't properly describe 鬼 ?
Bonus: Some further analysis of the Texas schoolbook revisions.

Homework for Class #17 (Tuesday 3/16)

Thanks for a good class today. I think we spent most of our time laughing, but what's better than that?

I will make some further responses to your blog posts about the movies and today's readings.

There will be no "老師" homework questions for Woman Warrior. Half of you will write "學生" questions for Tuesday's class on pages 1-108, and the other half will write questions for the 3/23 class on the remaining pages. (See today's e-mail.) We will then divide into groups and answer the best questions in class.

One further note... Sharon approached me after class with some additional thoughts about "Persimmons" and I told her she should make this the basis of her presentation (she will present on 3/23). So this shows you that your presentation can be about a new reading assignment, but also it could be a "return" to a recent assignment that you had something further to say about. The possibilities are pretty open, so let me know early if you have any ideas you want to explore.

Homework for Class #16 (Tuesday 3/9)

The long reach of empire allows me to continue assigning homework from another continent!

- Harte, “Plain Language from Truthful James (The Heathen Chinee)” (read here) + Norton 頁1475-76
- Pound, “The River Merchant’s Wife” (頁2018-19, 2022)
- Far, “In the Land of the Free (頁1720-27)
- Song, “Lost Sister,” “Heaven” (頁2840-45)
- Lee, “Persimmons” (頁2846-47)

136 (Ken). According to the Norton editor, Harte's writing "sentimentalize[s] and stereotype[s] both settings and characters." Do you think this is true for "Plain Language from Truthful James"? If so, who or what is being sentimentalized or stereotyped?
137 (Letitia). Compare the view of Chinese-Americans in Harte's poem to the view of this minority in the illustrations that were published with the poem (view on the same website).
138(Lucille). Compare Pound's translation of "The River Merchant's Wife" to the original by 李白. You can compare them here. You don't have to compare each line/verse, but choose a few in particular and note the differences between the translation and the original, and why you think they occur.
139(Meg). Given what you know about Pound's ambitions as a poet at the start of the 20th century, why do you suppose that he wanted to translate Chinese poetry?
140(Natalie). The other Sui Sin Far story I read, when I got the wrong edition of the Norton last week, had an interesting symbolism in the choice of names. Analyze Lae Choo, Hom Hing, and the other names in "In the Land of the Free," including "Sui Sin Far." Do they have any significance?
141(Peggy). Read the Wikipedia entries for "Chinese Exclusion Act" and "United States vs. Wong Kim Ark." Use them to give a brief summary of the political/legal context of "In the Land of the Free," and give examples from the story that show Far's consideration of this context.
142(Qian Yu). Analyze the symbolism of 玉 in "Lost Sister." If indeed you read the "Mrs. Spring Fragrance" story, compare the 玉 in that story. If not, please ignore.
143(Rea). According to Norton, Song's poems show "a privacy that the poet discloses but cannot fully enter." Explain what this means and give an example. Norton also says that her poems are "too composed, too removed from the sharp impact of experience." Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
144(Sharon). We'll be analyzing Whitman and some of the older poets who helped develop the following technique, but for now... notice the arrangement of the lines/verses in "Persimmons." The lines do not stop on complete thoughts, and there is often no punctuation. And they are different lengths. The sentences often spill over onto the next line, which is called an enjambment. What kind of effect does this poetic arrangement/punctuation give? Choose a couple of particular examples in the poem and discuss them.
145 (Sherry). Do you think that Asian-American poets all feel a particular responsibility to reconcile their modern lives in the U.S. to their family history in Asia? (Like Far, Song, and Lee.) Or do you think that there is a selection bias, insofar as publishers like Norton tend to choose these authors to publish rather than other Asian-American authors who might write about exclusively modern themes. Are Asian-American writers "typecast" in other words? Or am I too cynical?

Sydney (post a question about Bierce), Tady (post a question about Pound), Ted (post a question about Far), Teresa (post a question about Song), Ting-Ju (post a question about Lee)

See you soon!

Spring has sprung

Announcement: Please go to the bookstore and purchase Maxine Hong Kingston's novel Woman Warrior if it's available. I'm told that it was sold out, but perhaps they ordered more? (I have contacted the book dealer to inquire.)

Announcement: The TA (Ms. Chen) will supervise the class on Tuesday 3/2. You will watch the two movies posted below and answer the questions below for homework by posting replies to this blog entry. (Post by Friday 3/5.)

Announcement: Aaron will return to teach the class on Tuesday 3/9. The reading assignment to prepare for that session is specified here in the syllabus (Bierce/Pound/Far/Song/Lee); I will post the homework questions on Friday 3/5. If you have any complaints/suggestions about the syllabus, please post them by Monday 3/8. (I am aware of the scheduling conflict with the graduation ceremony, and am considering alterations.)

I look forward to seeing you soon!




Note: The Jazz Singer was released in 1927. It was the first full-length "talkie," or movie with synchronized sound.
Note: "Cantor" is a Jewish holy singer
Note: "Shiksa" means a non-Jewish woman
Note: "Kibbitzer" means gossiper
Note: The Bronx is the area of New York city just north of Manhattan island... it was a bit more rural at this time (especially even further to the north)... you can imagine the setting of the Jewish neighborhood in the movie being downtown Manhattan. My Jewish relatives actually moved to the south Bronx around this same time. Today the Bronx is a working class area, and downtown Manhattan is incredibly expensive. American cities tend to follow two patterns: one is a "white flight" pattern in which wealthy residents abandon the central city and commute to their professional jobs from the suburbs, the other is a "gentrification" pattern in which the central city areas become more expensive and lower-wage workers must leave them because the rent is too high. I would be interested to know which pattern prevails more in Taipei.

126 (Alyssa). Can a movie be considered a work of "American Literature"? Give arguments for both yes and no.
127 (Caleigh). I find the story of Jakie Rabinowitz / Jack Robin personally relevant because it makes me think of my grandparents' generation of Jews in New York City. Many of my students in California find it relevant because they or their parents have immigrated to the U.S. and faced the dilemmas of Americanization. What I wonder is if you find this movie identifiable or relevant? Why or why not?
128 (Carol). The Jazz Singer belongs to a category of technically innovative American movies that includes Avatar and Song of the South (remember that one? with the singing slaves and the cartoon rabbit?). Can you think of any reason why these technical innovations are accompanied in each case by an attempt to somehow consume the experience of a racial minority?
129 (Clara). It is clear what Jack's father represents (religious law, tradition). But I find his relationship to his mother quite interesting. What does it mean? How can we analyze her character?
130 (Crystal). Does the narrative of the Jazz Singer suit Roosevelt's rules for 'Americanization,' or not? Explain.





Note: Modern Times was released in 1936; it is considered the last great silent movie, although it does have some synchronized sound.
Note: "Gamin" means a street urchin, a boy. I think it should be "Gamine," which would be female. Also, I'm going to take a wild guess that most waterfront urchin girls are not strikingly beautiful.

131 (Emma). Analyze the choice of words on the title screen: "A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness."
132 (Esther). What kinds of things does Charlie Chaplin do, as an actor and as a director, to make the "Little Tramp" character so identifiable or sympathetic to his audience? Compare the Tramp to a 20th/21st century Taiwanese character who has a similar level of identifiability, or similar characteristics.
133 (Iris). Why do you think the German Nazis were convinced that the Little Tramp was Jewish? How is ethnicity/race addressed in Modern Times?
134 (Jane). Explain Chaplin's use of sound and/or silence to convey meaning. (Exclude the musical score.) Why do you think he didn't like "talkies"?
135 (Jenny). Which of our authors from last semester would like Modern Times the most? Which would like it the least? Explain.

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This review might be a nice way to practice your colloquial English over the vacation. It's kind of like a crasser version of my analysis of the movie. But pretty much equivalent.

This might also be a good summary of the movie's simplistic message of "cultural tourism."

For your amusement...

This is what happens when you miss the last two weeks of Mandarin class to go home to the U.S. And also forget some things you learned previously. Be happy your final exam for American Literature didn't look like this!

But I can also say that I finally figured out how to access your student information on the NTHU online course management system... and that means I can view the identification photos they took of you when you entered four years ago. So I'm not the only one who "looks a little bit silly." Ha ha.