ENGLISH 210: INTRODUCTION TO TEXTS
Section 001: MW, 10 to 11:50 a.m.,
and F, 10 to 10:50 a.m., HHH 321
Five Credits
Spring 2003, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN
Office: HHH 425, (715) 836-4369
Office Hours: MW 3:20-4:30
p.m., T 9:40-11 p.m., F 11 a.m. to 12 noon,
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. Writingoccurs 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 defamiliarization. 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.
2. Lesey, Michael. Wisconsin Death Trip. University of New Mexico Press, 1973. 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.
4. Wojnarowicz, David, et. al. Fever: the Art of David Wojnarowicz. Scholder, Amy, ed. New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1999. Purchase.
* 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. We may also, in
addition to or in lieu of using photocopied or Blackboard, rely in part
upon electronic reserve and postings at the faculty-student shared drive.
However, it is worth noting that it takes approximately 80,500 sheets of
paper to exhaust one relatively small-sized lumber tree, and with the kind
of recyclable paper we regularly use at UWEC, it takes closer to 402,500 sheets.
*
SCHEDULE
Unit One
Week One
W 1/22 Introduction and Orientation.
F 1/24 Reading Visual Texts.
Week Two
M 1/27 Reading Audio Texts.
W 1/29 Screening, Princess Mononoke.
F 1/31 Reading Audio-Visual Texts; Discussion, Princess Mononoke.
Week Three
M 2/3 Texts as Representation: Story and Storyteller, The 'Literary Anecdote', and the Short Story. Text Book: xv-xvi and 1-29.
W 2/5 Texts as Representation: Character and Confrontation, One. Text Book: 29-57.
F 2/7 Texts as Representation: Character and Confrontation, Two.
Week Four
M 2/10 Texts as Representation: Character and Confrontation, Three.
W 2/12 Texts as Representation: Representation and its Complications - Defamiliarization, and Representation and Reality - One. Text Book: 57-61.
F 2/14 Texts as Representation: Representation and its Complications - Defamiliarization, and Representation and Reality - Two. Screening, The Dadshuttle.
Week Five
M 2/17 Wisconsin Death Trip: Foreword, Preface, and One.
W 2/19 Wisconsin Death Trip: Two.
F 2/21 Wisconsin Death Trip: Three.
Week 6
M 2/24 Screening, Film Version of Wisconsin Death Trip, and Playing, Recording of Interview with Director James Marsh.
W 2/26 Conclusion, Playing of Interview with Wisconsin Death Trip Director James Marsh; Discussion: Conclusion to Book, Film, and Interview.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #1 Assigned. Unit #1 Paper Assigned. *
Unit Two
F 2/28 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: The Linguistic Basis of Metaphor, Metaphor as Basis for Thought, and Metaphorical Concepts. Text Book: 62-72 and 94-113.
Week 7
M 3/3 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Metaphor and Dreams/Poetic Uses of Metaphor. Text Book: 72-81 and 87-94.
W 3/5 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Arguing with Metaphor: Analogy and Ideology. Text Book: 113-128.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #1 Due. *
F 3/7 No Class. Instructor attending Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference.
Week 8
M 3/10 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Metaphor and Metonymy-Advertising. Text Book: 142-149.
W 3/12 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You: 1-75.
* Unit #1 Paper Due. *
F 3/14 Texts, Thoughts, and Things: Screening and Discussion, Pictures and Words: the Art of Barbara Kruger.
Spring Break: Saturday 3/15-Sunday 3/23.
Week 9
M 3/24 Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You: 76-139
W 3/26 Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You: 140- 244.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #2 Assigned. Unit #2 Paper Assigned. *
Unit Three
F 3/28 Texts and Other Texts: Intertextuality/Transforming
Texts. Text Book: 151-161.
Week 10
M 3/31 Texts and Other Texts: Completing Texts - The Reader's Work. Text Book: 176-190 and 229-238.
W 4/2 Screening, Casblanca. Text Book: 190-198.
* Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #2 Due. *
F 4/4 Screening, Play it Again Sam. Text Book: 198-199.
Week 11
M 4/7 Conclusion: Screening, Play it Again Sam; Screening, Bambi. Text Book: 199-207.
W 4/9 Continuation of Screening, Bambi; Discussion of Casablanca, Play it Again, Sam, and Bambi, as well as Ideology, Identification, and (Inter)Textuality.
* Unit #2 Paper Due. *
F 4/12 Debate, 1: Transforming, Interpreting, and (Re)Reading/(Re)Writing Texts: "Sleeping Beauty." Text Book: 162-176 and 214-229 plus Hypertext: Robert Coover, Briar Rose, at http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/textbook
Week 12
M 4/14 Debate, 2: Transforming, Interpreting, and (Re)Reading/(Re)Writing Texts: "Sleeping Beauty."
W 4/16 Fever: the Art of David Wojnarowicz: Foreword and 1-68.
F 4/18 No Class: Easter Break.
Week 13
M 4/21 No Class: Easter Break.
W 4/23 Fever: the Art of David Wojnarowicz -Two: 69-97.
F 4/25 Fever: the Art of David Wojnarowicz -Three: 98-136.
Week 14
M 4/28-F 5/2 No Classes: Festival Week (English Festival, Irish Film Festival, Prospective Campus Visit, Screening, and Talk - Independent Film maker Jon Shear).
Week 15
M 5/5 Screening and Discussion, Ballot Measure 9.
W 5/7 Screening and Discussion, Voices from the Front.
F 5/9 Conclusion.
*** 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 exploreadult
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 position.
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 aquality 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 mayinclude 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.
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 W 1/22 through W 2/26,
one to cover the period from F 2/28 through W 3/26 , and one to cover the
period from F 3/28 through F 5/9. 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 and second learning and contribution grades will each be worth 12.5%,
and the third 15%, for a combined total of 40% of the overall course grade.
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 minimum 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.
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 210, 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:
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/philosophy.htm
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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