English 2850 JMWD Professor Jennifer Sylvor
MW 12:25 – 2:05 [email protected]
VC 12-155
Office Hours: M 2:30 – 4 Office: VC 7-290 – cubicle “O”
and by appointment
Great Works of Literature II
Learning Goals:
- Increased ability to interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to an author’s choices of detail, vocabulary, and style
- Ability to discuss the relationship between different genres of literary texts and the multicultural environments from which they spring
- Increased confidence in offering a critical evaluation and appreciation of a literary work’s strengths and limitations
- Increased confidence in the oral presentation of ideas
- Increased ability to write a critical essay employing a strong thesis statement, appropriate textual citations, and contextual and intertextual evidence for your ideas
Required Texts:
Puchner, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Package II, volumes D,E,F. THIRD EDITION
Berggren, et al. Contexts and Comparisons: A Student Guide to the Great Works Courses (C&C). This is an electronic resource, accessible via the website of the Newman Library. Go to the library’s home page, click on “Digital Collections”, and find the listing for Contexts and Comparisons. You are welcome to print text from this resource at your convenience.
Course Blog: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850jmwdfall18
Course Requirements:
- Two formal analytical essays
- Midterm exam
- Final exam
- Participation in both in-class and blog-based discussion
- In-class and at-home informal writing
This is a Communication Intensive Course (CIC), which means that in addition to written work, you will be expected to be an active participant in classroom discussions.
Policies and Procedures:
- Attendance: Every absence beyond three will lower your course grade by one half step (an A- becomes a B+, a B+ becomes a B, etc…).
- Lateness: Three late arrivals will be treated as an absence.
- Preparedness: It is your responsibility to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Please come to each class session with the appropriate text, lined paper, and a writing implement. Because the bulk of our class time will be spent in close discussion of literary texts, having a hard copy of the text in front of you is an essential part of the course.
- Electronics: The use of laptops, ipads, and other handheld devices will be permitted at the discretion of the instructor for note-taking purposes only. Students using electronics in the classroom for any purpose other than note-taking will be asked to leave and will be marked absent. Cell phones are to remain out of sight during class sessions.
- Essays: Essays for this class will be submitted electronically via turnitin.com (details to follow). Grades will be reduced at a rate of one half grade a day for each day an assignment is late. Formal essays must be typewritten in 12 pt. type and double-spaced.
- Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and cheating are serious academic offenses and will not be tolerated. Plagiarism means presenting another author’s words or ideas without crediting them to their source. When you include another author’s words in your work, whether taken from a printed source, from the internet, or from a live presentation, those words must appear in quotation marks and be properly cited. When you include another person’s ideas in your work, you must indicate where you found those ideas, even if you are paraphrasing rather than quoting them. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult me. Any work submitted for this course that has been plagiarized will receive a failing grade and be reported to the Dean of Students. For more information on Baruch College’s policy, see http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.htm
Accommodations Policy: Baruch College is committed to making individuals with disabilities full participants in its programs, services, and activities through compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It is the policy of Baruch College that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall be denied access to or participation in any program, service, or activity offered by the university. Individuals with disabilities have a right to request accommodations. If you require any special assistance or accommodation, please let me know as soon as you can, ideally during the first three weeks of the semester.
Grading:
Your grade will be calculated as follows:
- Participation in class and on-line discussion 15%
- Presentation 5%
- Modernism Assignment 5%
- Essay #1 15%
- Essay #2 20%
- Mid-Term Exam 20%
- Final Exam 20%
Tentative Reading Schedule
What follows is a tentative schedule. Expect that we will be making adjustments as the semester progresses. More specific reading assignments will be announced in class and discussion questions will be posted each week on our class blog.
M 8/27 Introduction to the Course
W 8/29 Feng Menglong, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”
M 9/3 Labor Day – no class
W 9/5 Moliere, Tartuffe
M 9/10 Rosh Hashanah – no class
W 9/12 Moliere, Tartuffe
M 9/17 Akinari, “Bewitched” (Link to text will be posted on class blog.)
W 9/19 Yom Kippur – no class
M 9/24 Pope, Essay on Man
W 9/26 Rousseau, from Confessions
M 10/1 Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Link posted on blog.)
W 10/3 William Blake (selections to be announced)
M 10/8 Columbus Day – no class
W 10/10 William Wordsworth (selections to be announced)
F 10/12 Essay #1 due by 10 p.m. (electronic submission)
M 10/15 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
W 10/17 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (excerpts)
M 10/22 Midterm Exam
W 10/24 Ibsen, Hedda Gabler – Great Works Staged Reading, details tba
M 10/29 Ibsen, Hedda Gabler
W 10/31 Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”
M 11/5 Rabindranath Tagore, “Punishment”
W 11/7 T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
M 11/12 Lu Xun, “Upstairs in a Wineshop” (Link to text will be posted on blog)
W 11/14 Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”
M 11/19 Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”
W 11/21 No Class
M 11/26 Borowski, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”
W 11/28 Tayeb Salih, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid”
M 12/3 Toni Morrison, “Recitatif”
W 12/5 Isabel Allende, “And of Clay are They Created”
M 12/10 Junot Diaz, “Drown”
W 12/12 Review Session for Final Exam
F 12/14 Essay #2 Due by 5 p.m. (electronic submission)
W 12/19 Final Exam 1 – 3 pm
