ENGLISH 210: INTRODUCTION TO TEXTS
Section 001: MW, 10 to 11:50 a.m., SSS 322
and F, 10 to 10:50 a.m., HHH 230
Five Credits
Fall 2002, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN
Office: HHH 425, (715) 836-4369
Office Hours: M 12-1 and 3-5 p.m., T 10:30-11:30 p.m., W 10:30-11:30 p.m.,
and By Appointment.
COURSE EXPLANATION
Any discrete entity that
someone can and does interpret as meaningful is a text, not just
something that makes use of ordinary (written and spoken) language.
Reading occurs whenever anyone interprets a text, of any kind,
as possessing or bearing meaning. Writing occurs
whenever anyone creates or constructs a text that anyone else can interpret
as possessing or bearing meaning.
People write and read all of the following, and many more kind of texts, and they do so continuously, every day, all the time: films, television shows, music and video productions and performances, paintings and drawings, sculpture and architecture, sports, trends in clothing and fashion, commercial advertisements, individual dreams and plans, buildings and rooms, kinds of food and drink, roads and vehicles, ceremonies and rituals, personalities and personal relationships.
English today inquires into all of the vast multitude of processes involved in making meaning and engaging with meaning in all of its possible forms and varieties, in all places and at all times that "meaningfulness" occurs within cultures and subcultures where English is a dominant-or just a significant-form of written and spoken language.
This does not mean that literature no longer maintains a special place in contemporary English Studies. On the contrary, "literature" refers to writing that a particular culture, or subculture, considers to be especially "highly valuable." Yet standards for judging what is "highly valuable" change with time and vary from culture to culture as well as from subculture to subculture. What constitutes "literature," and especially "good" or "great" literature, becomes itself a site of significant contestation. New kinds of highly valued "writing," in new forms and from new media, supplant old ones, while classic texts take on new meanings and significances. Different people in different places interpret and evaluate these texts in often strikingly different as well as sharply opposing ways. Criteria for rating (literary) value become themselves objects of investigation, and focuses of debate.
At the college level, students of English can today
expect to learn about many different ways of expressing and communicating
meaning in many different textual forms and varieties, and can expect to
study how these texts are the products of particular cultures and subcultures
as well as how these texts in turn impact and influence the cultures and
subcultures out of which they emerge. Also, at the college level, students
learn how to look at texts critically, not just appreciatively, and they
learn how to account for their critiques (in other words, they learn how
to argue for their interpretations and evaluations).
The foundation course for the English
major-and minor-at UWEC reflects and responds to what English today has become.
This foundational course is the one in which you are here enrolled, English
210, "Introduction to Texts."
In this course we begin, in unit one,
by inquiring into what we mean when we talk or write about texts as "representing"
something, particularly through means of narrative, especially to facilitate
social processes of communication and contestation, and most powerfully to
elicit effects of defamiliiarization. We proceed, from there, in unit
two, to consider further interconnections among "texts," "thoughts," and
"things," concentrating in particular upon employment of metaphor and a considerable
array of other forms of figurative language in circumstances both ordinary
and extraordinary. Lastly, in unit three, we examine relations between texts
and other texts-relations of "intertextuality"- as well as in relations between
texts and contexts-considering the broad aesthetic, social, political, and
ideological uses and effects of reading and writing.
At the end of each unit we will engage
with a book that complicates conventional understandings of relations between
the verbal and the visual, the literary and the historical, the individual
and the social, the political and the aesthetic, and the creative and the
critical, as well as between form and content, and text and context: Wisconsin
Death Trip , Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, and Fever:
the Art of David Wojnarowicz.
Throughout the semester we will investigate
a host of visual, audio, and audio-visual, as well as verbal texts. We will
also inquire into the texts of your own life experiences, your own prior and
other knowledge, and your own most deeply entrenched and firmly committed
attitudes, outlooks, habits, beliefs, values, and modes of behavior.
TEXTS
The following required texts are available at the UWEC Bookstore:
1. Scholes, Robert, Nancy R. Comley, and Gregory L. Ulmer, eds., Text Book: Writing Through Literature. 3rd Edition. Bedford/S. Martin's, 2002. Purchase.3. Barbara Kruger, et. al. Barbara Kruger: Thinking
of You. Ann Goldstein, organizer. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles/M.I.T. Press, 1999. Rental.
* I will supply you with photocopied handouts of all supplementary readings and discussion guides used in the course. I will also periodically post study guides and other learning materials on my UWEC faculty website- http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan - as well as make resources available to you-such as short writing assignments, recommendations for further reading and study, paper assignments, changes in our schedule, announcements of activities and events of potential interest, and extended comments following upon class discussions or in response to student questions via our class e-mail distribution list and/or a Blackboard electronic classroom website I am creating for this course. I will explain how to access this latter site before we begin to use it. *
SCHEDULE
Unit One
Week 1
W 9/4: Introduction and Orientation.
F 9/6: Introduction to Reading Texts, One (Reading Visual
Texts).
Week 2
M 9/9: Introduction to Reading Texts, Two (Reading Aural
Texts).
W 9/11: Texts as Representation: Story and Storyteller
and The 'Literary' Anecdote. Text Book: xv-xvi and 1-18.
F 9/13: Texts as Representation: The Short Story.
Text Book : 18-29.
Week 3
M 9/16: Texts as Representation: Character and Confrontation.
Text Book: 29-57.
W 9/18: Texts as Representation: Character and Confrontation.
F 9/20: Texts as Representation: Representation and Its
Complications. Text Book: 57-61.
Week 4
M 9/23: Wisconsin Death Trip: Foreword, Introduction,
and One.
W 9/25: Wisconsin Death Trip: Two.
F 9/27: Wisconsin Death Trip: Three.
Week 5
M 9/30: Screening Film, Wisconsin Death Trip and
Playing, Interview with Film Director James Marsh.
W 10/2: Discussion, Film, Wisconsin Death Trip,
and Wisconsin Death Trip: Conclusion.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper
#1 Assigned. Unit #1 Paper Assigned. *
Unit Two
Week 6
M 10/7: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: The Linguistic Basis
of Metaphor and Metaphor in Three Poems. Text Book: 62-74.
W 10/9: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Metaphor and Dreams.
Text Book : 74-83.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #1
Due. *
F 10/11: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Surrealist Metaphor.
Text Book : 82-87.
Week 7
M 10/14: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Poetic Uses of Metaphor.
Text Book: 87-94.
W 10/16: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Metaphor as Basis
for Thought/Metaphorical Concepts. Text Book: 94-113.
* Unit #1 Paper Due. *
F 10/18: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Arguing with Metaphor:
Analogy and Ideology. Text Book: 113-128.
Week 8
M 10/21: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Hidden Meaning: Parables
and Allegory. Text Book: 128-142.
W 10/23: Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Metaphor and Metonymy:
Advertising. Text Book: 142-149.
F 10/25: No Class.
Week 9
M 10/28: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, 1-75.
W 10/30: Film about Barbara Kruger, Discussion of Film,
and Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, 76-107.
F 11/1: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, 108-139.
Week 10
M 11/4: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, 140-187.
W 11/6: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, 188-244.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper
#2 Assigned. Unit #2 Paper Assigned. *
Unit Three
F 11/8: Texts and Other Texts: Intertextuality. Text
Book: 150-157.
Week 11
M 11/11: Texts and Other Texts: Transforming Texts (1).
Text Book: 157-161.
W 11/13: Texts and Other Texts: Transforming Texts (2).
Text Book: 161-176.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection
Paper #2 Due. *
F 11/15: Texts and Other Texts: Text and Hypertext. Hypertexts
("Briar Rose" and "A Jarrett in Your Text") at
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/textbook
.
Week 12
M 11/18: Texts and Other Texts: Completing Texts: The Reader's
Work. Text Book: 176-190.
W 11/20: Screening, Casablanca.
* Unit #2 Paper Due. *
F 11/22: Screening, Play It Again Sam.
Week 13
M 11/25: Finish Screening, Play It Again Sam and
Discussion, Casablanca, Play It Again Sam, and Identifying
with Texts. Text Book: 190-207.
W 11/27: On Interpretation/Interpreting Texts. Text
Book: 207-238.
Week 14
M 12/2: Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz, Foreword
and pp. 1-68.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper
#3 Assigned. Unit #3 Paper Assigned. *
W 12/4: Screening, Silence = Death and Discussion,
Silence = Death.
F 12/6: Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz, 69-92.
Week 15
M 12/9: Screening, Postcards from the Edge.
W 12/11: Discussion, Postcards from the Edge and
Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz, pp. 93-136.
F 12/13: Conclusion.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #3 Due. *
**Unit #3 Paper Due M 12/16 by 12 noon, in my mailbox, HHH 405.**
*** PLEASE NOTE: THE PRECEDING SCHEDULE
IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. ***
ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF CLASS SESSIONS
I will not formally
lecture at any point in this course, although I will from time to time make
relatively brief, informal presentations when and where I believe this will
prove helpful to the class. I strongly believe in the value of teaching by
way of discussion; I conceive of learning as a collective project in which
you learn much better and far more through active co-production than through
passive consumption. At the college level this is especially important,
and especially at a college or university dedicated to liberal arts education,
as UWEC is. You are adults, not children, and I will always treat you this
way. At the same time, I expect you to assume the responsibility and meet
the challenge of engaging in class as mature, responsible adults.
Our class discussions will follow a
variety of different formats. I will introduce and explain these as we proceed,
but I do want to let you know right away that I will often ask that you to
do some short, relatively informal writing outside of and in preparation for
class to help facilitate our discussion in class. I also will expect
all students to make a sincere effort to contribute-seriously and thoughtfully-to
class discussion. I likewise encourage students to argue with and critique
me, each other, and the texts we read and discuss, as far as you feel inclined
to do so-at least as long as you do this in a relevant and constructive
fashion.
I think we all learn a great deal through intelligent argument and critical exchange. Please never hesitate to pursue this. Do not assume that pretending to agree with what seems to be an explicit or implicit consensus on the part of the majority of the class, even when you really don't agree, best serves the interest of learning; on the contrary, the opposite is, most definitely, almost always the case.
ON INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGES,
ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND CURRICULAR INTEGRITY
The English Department aims to provide you with an intellectually
challenging education. This means we will often include texts and introduce
topics in our courses that candidly explore adult issues, including
ones that offer representations that may, on occasion, prove unsettling,
disturbing, and even offensive to some of you.
The higher educational academy is not
a "safe space" separate from the rest of the "real world" where you can expect
to be sheltered from encountering anything you might find disagreeable or
objectionable. On the contrary, we expect you to take up the challenge to
confront these kinds of texts and topics in a mature, responsible way, and
that means bringing directly to bear your negative reactions-including your
reactions of shock, dismay, and discontent-in class discussions and
in your writings and presentations for class. If you find a position
or practice represented in a text or topic included in the assigned readings
or screenings for class to be objectionable, it is therefore of crucial importance
that you raise your objections openly and honestly, not simply claim personal
exemption from having to see, hear, or talk, read, and write about these kinds
of matters. After all, disturbing positions and practices exist extensively
outside of the classroom as well as in what we read, see, hear, and otherwise
confront in and for class; what we do confront in class exists in this institutional
space as symptomatic of positions and practices that operate beyond the
confines of the classroom, the course, and the university. If and when
you find any text or topic genuinely appalling, you maintain the ethical
responsibility, as a mature adult and as a responsible citizen, not simply
to try to hide from these positions and practices but rather to work to
critique and change them.
Students should expect therefore that
you may well on occasion encounter representations that you will find troubling,
in this UWEC course and in many others as well; within this Department you
will receive no right of exemption from engaging with these and no welcome
for simply complaining (especially to a higher administrative authority) about
their inclusion. Instead you should bring your objections forthrightly to
bear in your contributions to class discussion. Finally, to conclude this
particular point of discussion, a professor differs from a high school teacher
in many respects, but one key difference is that we maintain a principal professional,
ethical responsibility forthrightly to represent the most advanced knowledges
in our fields of expertise and to proceed from there to work toward their
further development and dissemination. In short, we must create, advocate
for, and profess these knowledges; you should expect that your professors
may from time to time take strong and indeed controversial positions on
difficult and challenging issues, eschewing the pretense of disinterested
neutrality. To do anything less than assume this responsibility, and to
do so with alacrity, would be to shirk our professorial responsibility and
to render ourselves unworthy of maintaining our professorial positions.
GENERAL EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENTS
I expect students in this course to
be sincerely interested in learning about the subject matter of this course,
and to be consistently intellectually serious as well as academically diligent
in their pursuit of this learning. I expect students to strive to bring actively
and extensively to bear-in their essays and contributions to class discussion-insights
they gain through their engagement with the texts and topics addressed as
part of this course, and I expect students to strive at the same time to
relate these texts and topics as closely and as fully as possible to subjects
of genuine interest and concern in their own lives. Finally, I expect students
to let me know right away when and if they have any questions or problems
about any aspect of how they are doing in and with the course, so that I
can do everything I possibly can to help answer these questions and solve
these problems.
SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE GRADE
Introduction
In evaluating all work done for this
course, I will take account of how carefully, seriously, intelligently, enthusiastically,
and imaginatively students engage with the concepts, issues, positions,
and arguments addressed in the course and represented by the texts we read,
by me, and by each other.
Attendance
This course cannot contribute effectively
to your education if you do not attend class. What happens in class is an
indispensable part of this course. I will take note of student attendance
and therefore I expect students to adhere to the following attendance policy
for this course:
Learning and Contribution
What This is and Why it is Important
My foremost aim in teaching this course is to help you to learn something of significance and value. I will judge you to a significant degree on what you learn, how- and how hard-you strive to learn, and on how-as well as how well-you contribute to the learning for the rest of the class.
You cannot learn or help others learn
if you do not contribute. If you don't contribute to the work of this class
not only will you fail to derive as much gain from it as would be the case
if you did contribute, but also you will deprive everyone else of the benefit
of your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, knowledge, and experience. In
fact, to remain passively silent in class exploits the work of others who
actively engage.
Class Participation
Class participation represents an important opportunity to learn, not just a place in which to demonstrate what you have learned. By raising questions, testing and trying out ideas, taking risks and making mistakes, you learn a great deal-and help others learn a great deal as well. You learn through talking, not just talk to show what you have learned. Don't hesitate to speak forth in class if you have anything at all to throw into the mix.
At the same time, just talking a great
deal does not necessarily mean that you are making a quality contribution
to the class by aiding the learning that we aim to accomplish. Quality
of participation is much more important than quantity, although a sufficient
quantity is indispensable to insure quality.
Quality class participation does not,
moreover, involve merely asking questions of me and responding to my questions;
quality class participation requires you to work as assiduously as you can
to advance a serious and substantial discussion with your peers as well as
with me about the texts and topics subject to discussion. Students should,
therefore, be prepared to engage with and respond to each other in class discussion,
and I will take particular note of how well you do so.
Alternative Forms of Contribution
Contribution to the class certainly
can extend far beyond mere speaking in class: it may include
a variety of ways in which you can bring to bear your insights to help yourself
as well as the rest of us gain from the experience of this course.
If you believe that you can make significant contributions to the success
of our class in ways other than by speaking in our class meetings, please
arrange to talk with me about this in a conference as early in the semester
as possible. I will be glad to support these efforts if they seem potentially
productive to me, but I need to know about them and to discuss with you what
I think about them in order to endorse them. I certainly understand some
people enter college better prepared and more confident speaking in class
than others, but I would like to engage with what each one of you is thinking
and feeling as we proceed through the semester, so if you tend to be somewhat
shy in class, make up for this by coming to talk with me outside of class
and by sending me questions and comments over e-mail.
Also, on the Blackboard electronic classroom website
I am creating for this course, you will be able to "conference" (in other
words, "chat") with fellow students on topics you raise related to course
texts and discussions; I will encourage students to use this "conference"
space to share ideas and to discuss-and debate-issues of interest with each
other; if you find it easier to "talk" in this way that in class itself, I
strongly urge you to take advantage of it. This way you can help each other
as you grapple with the texts, including by discovering areas where you and
others would like to ask me additional questions to help you out as you work
to understand new kinds of texts and new ways of thinking about texts.
Learning and Contribution Reflection Papers/
Learning and Contribution Grades
I will divide your learning and contribution
grade into three parts: one to cover the period from 9/4 to 10/2, one to cover
the period from through 10/7 through 11/6, and one to cover the period from
11/8 through 12/13. At the end of each of the three learning and
contribution periods I will ask you to prepare a learning and contribution
reflection paper, assessing your learning and contribution over the course
of the preceding period of the semester. As I see it, this provides
you an opportunity to communicate with me how you believe you are doing
with the course, as well as why so, and to demonstrate your critical self-reflexivity,
the hallmark of a liberal arts education.
You may here include thoughts in reaction
to issues raised in class discussion that you did not have the opportunity
or did not feel comfortable enough to share in class; these additional reflections
will help me get a better sense of what you have been thinking about and how
you have been responding to class discussions, as well as to the readings.
I will take into account what you write in determining your learning and
contribution grade for the preceding semester period.
I will provide you specific directions in the assignment I give you for each of these papers; please note well that the questions I ask you to address will change from reflection paper to reflection paper. These papers do not need be any specific length or follow any particular format but I expect you to answer my questions precisely and thoroughly. I expect you to take these assignments seriously and to write as clearly and carefully as possible; failure to do so will result in a significantly lower learning and contribution grade. The first learning and contribution grade will be worth 12.5%, the second 15%, and the third 17.5%, for a combined total of 45%.
Unit Papers
At the end of each unit I will assign
you a paper, asking you to work with the texts and concepts we discussed in
the preceding unit. I will give you multiple options in each case. You should
type these papers, double-space, on singles sides of standard white letter
(8" X 11") paper. Your margins should be standard-length, and your name
should be at the top of the first page. You should staple the separate pages
of the paper together and proofread what you write before turning this in
to me for a grade. You may use any standard font you prefer while your print
size may range between 10 and 12 points. You must try to follow all the
rules and conventions of Standard Written English as closely as possible,
including MLA guidelines for citation and documentation of sources. Every
English major and minor should own a handbook or a style book that explains
how to do all of this; if you do not yet own such a book, please purchase
one as soon as possible. Your grade on these papers will take into account
matters of style as well as substance, and, especially, how well you unite
the two. You should aim for an approximate average target length of
1500 to 2000 words per unit paper (roughly the equivalent of
six to eight double-spaced, typed pages). Each unit paper will
be worth 20% of the overall course grade. For extra
credit , students may a.) revise either unit paper one or
two (but not both), or b.) write a paper in response to one additional
option for unit papers one, two, or three.
THE GOALS OF THE BACCALAUREATE
This university is, as many of you know,
a liberal arts institution; education in the liberal
arts (and sciences) represents the historic and central commitment of what
we do together on this UW campus-not vocational training
and pre-professional development. The university administration and faculty
support this commitment so strongly that they have asked that all syllabi
elaborate the official goals of the baccalaureate, as well as identify which
ones the course in question will help you achieve. According to the UWEC
administration, the baccalaureate degree shall work to develop the following
for UWEC students:
UWEC strives to help you meet these objectives in the
course of the higher education you pursue here. Please note that in making
these our foremost aims, we at UWEC clearly distinguish ourselves from technical
colleges as well as from all other UW schools, especially places like Stout,
River Falls, and Stevens Point. This section of English 160, Introduction
to Texts will help contribute to you meeting goals 1-4, 6, and 9-11.
CONFERENCES/EXTRA HELP
I encourage you to meet with me in
conference during office hours or at another mutually convenient time to discuss
any issue of interest or concern related to what we are doing in this course.
Learning that takes place in conferences can at times be equally as important,
and in fact occasionally even more important, than what takes place in class.
Please do not hesitate to meet with me during office hours or to ask for
an appointment at any time you think this might be helpful; I regard making
myself available for conferences with you outside of class to be an indispensable
part of my responsibility as your teacher. Moreover, I always sincerely
do welcome getting to know and work with my students outside as well as inside
of class. I am ready to do whatever I can to help you in your understanding
of issues addressed in texts and discussions, as well as to help you in your
writing for and participation in this course. I want to make sure that I
do all that I can to help you succeed in this course and I want to help you,
as far as I can, to gain as much out of it as possible through your participation
in and work for it. You may also feel free to write me via e-mail, and
to call me-or leave a message for me on the answering machine-at my office.
I enjoy meeting and working with students outside as well as inside
of class; I really do. I would rather talk with you during my office
hours than do anything else, so please do not worry about "disturbing"
me in coming to talk with me; my office hours are time that I have
set aside to meet, talk, and work with you . PLEASE DO TAKE
ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY! And, remember, once again, taking the time
to meet and talk with me periodically in conference is a great way to contribute
to the class.
CONCLUSION
I strive to be as accountable to my
students as possible. I believe it is crucial that students become aware
of the ideas and the values which shape and direct their education, and I
believe students should expect that all of their teachers will be prepared
to explain why they teach as they do. Please, therefore, take the time, as
early as you can this semester, to read through and think carefully about
my "Statement of Teaching Philosophy" that I have posted on my UWEC faculty
website:
This statement explains WHY I teach as I do. I think it is extremely important that you know and understand where your teachers are coming from in teaching you as they do. You will find me one who trusts you sufficiently always to be frank about this with you.
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