Syllabus

English 2850
Great Works of Literature II
“Digital Works Meet Great Works ”
Prof. Michael Polesny 
Fall  2018

ENG-JMWB
(54434)
Room: Vert. 6 – 140
Mon/Wed: 12:25 – 2:05 pm
Office: 55 Lexington Ave, Desk 7-290Q
Office phone: 646.312.3955
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: Mon/Wed after class with an appointment
(If you don’t tell me in advance that you wish to meet I may not be there)

Online Texts

(almost all free; links presented below in the order we’ll use them; a few additional texts will be added)

1.   Shakespeare, King Lear
https://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/Lr.html#FromTheDirector

2.   Cervantes, Don Quixote (Kindle – Free Edition)
 https://www.amazon.com/Don-Quixote-Miguel-Cervantes-ebook/dp/B0081AKCTK

3.  Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat 
http://classics.mit.edu/Khayyam/rubaiyat.html

4. John Milton, Paradise Lost,  
http://triggs.djvu.org/djvu-editions.com/MILTON/LOST/Download.pdf

5.  Aphra Behn, Oroonoko 
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/behn001oroo01_01/behn001oroo01_01.pdf

6.   Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

7.  Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street 
http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/LCS/bartleby.pdf

8. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein 
https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/frankenstein.pdf

9.  Kafka, Metamorphosis 
https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/the-metamorphosis.pdf

10. Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler 
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4093

11. Lu Xun, The New Year’s Sacrifice 
http://www.jonvonkowallis.com/readers/ARTS2453/050-061-Lu_Xun-The_New_Year_Sacrifice.pdf

Primary Course Objectives

This semester we will dive into some of the most important literary works from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century in order to see the world, our common experiences, and our literary heritage in a new light.  We will actively read a broad range of texts—poetry, narrative fiction and non-fiction, and drama— and practice the moves through which scholars generate close readings.  The discipline of close reading – or “slow reading”  requires practice, the practice of what we now call “mindfulness”; accordingly, we will engage in regular in-class exercises that include free writing, reading quizzes, and discussion and presentation done both individually and in groups.  I’m also interested in your creative vision inspired by a text and will ask you to apply the skill of invention to your reading.  By developing your ability to read one text deeply and creatively, and many texts comparatively, you will learn how to generate and support your own interpretations; formulate compelling arguments; situate yourself—your experiences, vision, and interests—in relation to a text; and better represent your thinking through your writing.

Secondary Course Objectives: Humanizing the Digital Human

We will employ a “digital methodology” which — following on my central instruction to students to scout out and gloss online video appreciations of our semester’s great works — aims to engender in individual students and in the milieu of the classroom as a whole “the appreciation of appreciation,” what I call “an aesthetic education in aesthetic experience.” Indeed our semester’s methodology mainly exists to cultivate the appreciative experience of one digital user for another digital user’s “viral” aesthetic appreciation for a great work. We will scout out and discuss digital glosses on our great works that exist online, chiefly in the interest of rousing what older generations simply called “aesthetic appreciation” or “the pleasure of the text.”  We will effectively train ourselves to access the great experience of great works vicariously—vicariously through readers all over the internet who have gone the extra step, who have desired to make an aesthetic “digital” appreciation of a great work go viral, go public, go in the direction of winning “hits” and even “pop” notoriety.  In sum, we will hope to nourish our own capacity for literary appreciation and literary reading by first – in a spirit of informality and “play” — feeding on the online digital appreciations of great works made by digital users just like you and me.

Learning Goals

Students who successfully complete this course should be able to:

  • Distinguish between literary and non-literary language.
  • Understand the achievements and limitations of each genre /mode of language that we us in life, and why a writer might favor one genre / mode over another.
  • Identify literary genres, styles and/or aesthetic sensibilities in ways that account for the time and place of their origin.
  • Recognize the thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions and imperatives – both social ones and personal ones – that not only drive literary communication but also grow out it.
  • Clearly communicate (both verbally and in writing) your new understanding of literature to your classmates, to me, to your friends, and to total strangers.
  • Show in your verbal and written discussions:
    1. a clear and concise “thesis statement”
    2. clear and concise ways of supporting your thesis statement with “evidence”
    3. a sense of when, why and how one might offer “citations” as evidence
    4. a skill for keeping “thesis” and “evidence” central to both your written and verbal communication.
  • Speak about a work’s value in terms of its effect on your intellect and emotions, and in terms of its potential to bring about historical change – change both in its present time and future times.

Course Requirements

Attendance:

Half-grade decrease (e.g., from A- to B+) for each day absent beyond three

Two late arrivals or two early departures equal one absence

In the event of lateness, see me after class to learn about assignments you may have missed. In the event of absence, always email me —  preferably before your absence, but, if necessary, after it – about assignments and about the reason for your absence.

You are responsible for reading the works assigned for the class BEFORE showing up to the class.  

Be prepared to discuss what you have read — but, initially, be prepared to speak only casually about what you have read. That is, it helps if you imagine your discussions in class as unfolding on the same level as a discussion that you might have with a very close friend after seeing a movie together. As the semester progresses, so too will your proficiency for literary analysis and discussion, and, organically, the level of our discussions will progress from casual to more formal.  

Projects:

Written Glosses on Digital Glosses (50% of your grade):

Ours is a “digital methodology” rooted in a spying activity, spying out creative “digital” online responses to our semester’s “great works” and subsequently commenting on the latent or manifest “aesthetical” dimensions of these digital online responses. We will practice in the hope of midwifing the birth of “aesthetic experience” in our own auditors, in our fellow classmates this semester, in present and later generations of online users.

Each student will create his / her own Baruch blog, to include:

 * a page for each “great work”

* one digital online video response to the “great work” that the student found personally interesting and which the student identified as worthy of contributing to our semester long immersion in aesthetic appreciation and experience. (You will “embed” the video into your page.)

 * finally the student will offer a comment aimed at elucidating the ways in which the video commentary that the student selected in some sense expresses an enthusiastic aesthetic experience — precisely as according to our semester-long exploration and experimentation with aesthetic experience, the terms and contours of which we will spell out all semester.

In-Class Spoken Glosses on Digital Glosses (10 % of your grade):

Students will be scheduled daily to present their blog pages to the class, to explain their digital selection and comment, and students will do so chiefly in the interest of “sharing in the promotion” (Dewy) of aesthetic experience with the rest of the class. Each student will do 3 short informal presentations aimed at generating group discussion on the digital gloss of the student’s choice.

Midterm / Final Essays (30 % of your grade; due dates TBA; 4-5 pages each):

Your final essays will constitute a finer version of your midterm essays. You’ll develop one of your blog posts into a paper (this process of development I’ll talk about in class); or you’ll treat a subject of your choice — to be approved by me in an office hour.

Final Assignment: Your Blog Homepage “Introduction” (10% of your grade, due last day of the semester):

By the end of the semester students will have created their own personal blog to include a “Digital Commentary” page for each of our 12 great works, terminating in a 12-page digital commentary blog — “Digital Glosses on Great Experiences” — to be submitted as a final project. Your homepage – your final project — will display a 1000-word “Introduction to the Great Experiences of Great Works.” The aim of the “Introduction” is to highlight some of the great experiences of great works treated on your blog pages. We will practice how to write an “Introduction” during the final weeks of the semester.  

     

Plagiarism:  Plagiarism is not only uncool, it is illegal:  The Department of English fully supports Baruch College’s policy on Academic Honesty, which states, in part: “Academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Cheating, forgery, plagiarism and collusion in dishonest acts undermine the college’s educational mission and the students’ personal and intellectual growth. Baruch students are expected to bear individual responsibility for their work and to uphold the ideal of academic integrity. Any student who attempts to compromise or devalue the academic process will be sanctioned.” Additional information can be found at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.html

 Sanctions for proven cases of plagiarism are strong and may include a grade of F on the assignment or a final grade of F in the course. All cases of plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students.

Calendar          

            Aug.    27        Digital Methodology primer

                        29        Digital Methodology primer

            Sept.  3          No class

                        5          Shakespeare,King Lear

            Sept.   10        No class

                       12        Shakespeare, King Lear

            Sept. 17       OFF

                        19        Shakespeare, King Lear

            Sept.   24        Shakespeare, King Lear

                        26        Cervantes, Don Quixote                                

            Oct.    1          Cervantes, Don Quixote     

                        3          Cervantes,Don Quixote     

            Oct.     8          No class

                        10       Cervantes, Don Quixote      

            Oct.     15        Omar Khayyam, Rubiyat  

                        17        Omar Khayyam, Rubiyat

            Oct.    22       Omar Khayyam, Rubiyat

                        24        Milton, Paradise Lost

Oct.     29        Milton, Paradise Lost

                        31        Behn, Oroonoko

            Nov.    5          Behn,Oroonoko

                        7          Behn, Oroonoko

 

            Nov.    12        Whitman,Song of Myself

                        14        Whitman, Song of Myself

             Nov.   19        Whitman,Song of Myself

                        21        Melville, Bartelby

            Nov.   26        Melville,Bartelby      

                        28       Melville, Bartelby

            Dec.    3          Kafka / Shelley, Metamorphosis / Frankenstein

                        5         Kafka / Shelley, Metamorphosis / Frankenstein

            Dec.     10        Kafka / Shelley, Metamorphosis / Frankenstein

                        12        Lu Xun, The New Year’s Sacrifice