• Select a piece from the Words Without Borders Campus website http://wwb-campus.org/find/
• Write a 1,000 word (approx. 4 pages) introduction: Give background into the author, the region, and the time period; Offer your thoughts on the text’s meaning and themes.
• Annotate the text, explaining specific words, allusions, or backgrounds; alerting your reading to examples illustrating the critical terms we have discussed in class; and showing your reader how you interpret the work.
• Compose an annotated bibliography of 4 sources: Scholarly articles, interviews, reviews, etc. about the text or its author that you think will help students to understand the work and its context. For each entry, write a 200-word “blurb” telling your reader why this piece of criticism is helpful for understanding the text or your interpretation.

“Behind the cotton wool [of daily life] is
hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human
beings—are connected with this; that the
whole world is a work of art; that we are
parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a
Beethoven quartet is the truth about this
vast mass that we call the world. But there is
no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven;
certainly and emphatically there is no God;
we are the words; we are the music; we are
the thing itself.”

― Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past”

For this assignment, due Monday, use any media you would like to map the connections between characters throughout Woolf’s novel. Pay attention to echoes, repetitions, places, thoughts, feelings, and images that help to cohere the diverse lives Woolf represents.

Listen to M. NourbeSe Philips read her poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” and comment on how her explanation of language and slavery contributes to your understanding of Douglass’s slave narrative. Think about how she “performs” language to make it strange and how it bends words to create meaning. If there is a moment of Douglass’s autobiography that this poems reminds you of, please include that in your comment. (250 words)

Frankenstein, 1931 dir. James Whale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOcJwt8XB4M

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 1994, dir. Kenneth Branagh

Watch these two clips and in a 250-word comment below, reflect on the portrayals of the Creature’s birth and how they differ from Shelley’s description in the novel. What do the films retain or change, and how does it affect your understanding of the scene?