---- The Schedule ----
All major assignments are included, but minor assignments and
readings may be added. Please note that the schedule may shift in
transit due to the contingencies of our semester, the the onset of
entropy, or unprecedented epistemic disruptions. Don’t
panic.
Star Wars as Pastiche:
here.
Week 1 (Sep. 4 and 6)
Note that it wouldn't hurt to
go ahead and get signed up for the
wiki.
Note that you're going to have
to commit to an author for research at the end of next week. Spend
some time learning about these folks.
Due Friday: Film Screening Survey
Blogging: The "week" for blogging
will end the following Monday at class time. <<No posts for
Week 1. Let's ramp up slowly!
- Day 1: No Class
- Day 2: Course Introduction
- Day 3: from Postmodern
Debates: Introduction (Simon Malpas);
“Postmodernism and Consumer Society” (Fredric Jameson);
“Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” (Jean Francois
Lyotard) + from Smith: "Is the Devil from Paris? Postmodernism
and the Church" (Smith)
- Hey!: Be looking into authors and
deciding which one you'd like to research.
Week 2 (Sep. 9, 11, and 13)
Note:
Remember that you need to either PRINT online texts or have some
reasonable way (Kindle? iPad? Laptop?) to view your electronic
copy in class. Tiny, tiny phone screens don't really count in this
context.
Due Monday: Self intro on course
wiki before class.
Due Friday: Sign up for research
subject (on wiki) before Friday's class. (Sign up no earlier than
Thursday at 7:00 am.)
Blogging: 2 posts this week.
- Day 1: “Tlon: Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “The Library of Babel,”
“On Exactitude in Science,” “Borges and I” (Jorge Luis
Borges); “Anecdote
of the Jar,” “Metaphors
of a Magnifico” (Wallace Stevens)
- Due: Self Intro on Wiki
-
- Day 2: John Barth: “Lost in the Funhouse,” “Frame Story"
- Day 3: John Barth: “The Literature of Replenishment”
- Due: Claim Author on Wiki
- Due: Film Screening Survey
- Hey!: Get to the library and
start doing the basic groundwork on your author research, so
that you can complete NEXT Friday's assignment.
Week 3 (Sep. 16, 18, and 20)
Due Friday @5:00: Proof and Justification of *3* ILL
Requests (Inquiry Project)
Due Friday @5:00: Critical Response #1 (Borges,
Barth, or Slaughterhouse)
Blogging: 1 post this week
- Day 1: Slaughterhouse
Five (Kurt Vonnegut) (Chapters 1-5)
- Day 2: Slaughterhouse Five (Chapters 6-10)
- Day 3: Andy Crouch, from Culture Making, pp
17-98 (This will go faster than other theory we've read so
far.)) + Hardeep Singh Sidhu: “history is
a genre and genre has a history” (noting the tension Sidhu
places between pastiche and participation)-->
- Due: Proof of ILL/SUMMITs +
Critical Response #1
Notes on the way William F. Gibson has used the
word "evert" in his fiction:
here.
Week 4 (Sep. 23, 25, and 27)
Due: Nothing is officially due
this week, beyond reading, but you’re digging yourself a
deep, dark hole if you’re not actively moving forward
your research agenda for the Inquiry Project.
Blogging: 2 posts
- Day 1: from Postmodern Debates: "The Gulf War:
Is It Really Happening?" (Jean Baudrillard) + (Online) “Liar,
Liar Pants on Fire” (Errol Morris)
- Day 2: Postmodern Debates: "Deconstruction and
Actuality" (Jacques Derrida) + from Smith: "Nothing Outside the
Text? Derrida, Deconstruction, and Scripture" (Smith)
- Day 3: Catch Up / "The
Gernsback Continuum" (William F. Gibson)
Week 5 (Sep. 30; Oct. 2 and 4)
Due Friday @5:00: Substantial Research Update Using
Screencast-o-Matic (Inquiry Project)
Blogging: 2 posts for this week
(Week 5) and next week (Week 6) together.
Week 6 (Oct. 7, 9, and 11)
Due Friday @5:00: Critical Response #2 (Lot 49 or
DeLlilo)
Blogging: 2 posts for last week
(Week 5) and this week (Week 6) together.
- Day 1: White
Noise
(Chapter 21 / Part 2) (You may want to read ahead today in
light of the longer reading due for Wednesday.) REVISED
"Midnight in Dostoevsky" (Don DeLillo)
- Day 2: White
Noise (Chapter 22 - end / Part 3) REVISED: White
Noise (Chapter 21 / Part 2)
- Day 3: from Postmodern Debates:
"Ideology, Discourse and the Problems of 'Post-Marxism'" (Terry
Eagleton); "We Anti-Representationalists" (Richard Rorty)
- Due: Critical Response #2
Week 7 (Oct. 14, 16, and 18)
Friday, Class Time: Midterm, Essay Sections Due by
5:00
Blogging: 2 posts for this week
(Week 7) and next week (Week 8) together.
- Day 1: Catch Up / George Orwell’s “Shooting
an Elephant” + from Smith: "Where Have All the
Metanarratives Gone? Lyotard, Postmodernism, and the Christian
Story" (Smith)
- MONDAY or TUESDAY Evening:
Film Screening: Shane Carruth’s Upstream
Color
- Day 2: Film Discussion
- Day 3: MIDTERM
Week 8 (Oct. 21 and 23)
Due Thursday, 10/24 @5:00: Inquiry Project.
Extensions negotiable for those with good reasons.
Blogging: 2 posts for last week
(Week 7) and this week (Week 8) together.
- Day 1: from Smith: "Power/Knowledge/Discipline: Foucault and
the Possibilities of a Postmodern Church" (Smith) + Due:
Inquiry Project
- Day 2: Plantinga: "Postmodernism and Pluralism," pp 422-37
(Handout)
- Day 3: No Class: Fall Break
Week 9 (Oct. 30 and Nov. 1)
Due NEXT Monday @5:00: Initial Claim for Critical
Analysis (Critical Analysis)
Blogging: 4 posts for this week
(Week 9) and next week (Week 10) together.
- Day 1: No Class: Fall Break
- Day 2: Parks Essays (at start of America Play
book) + The America Play (JUST that play; NOT the
whole set of plays in the book!) (Suzan-Lori Parks)
- Day 3: Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom
(Suzan-Lori Parks)
Week 10 (Nov. 4, 6, and 8)
Are you Working on Your Critical Analysis? If
Not, Why Not? Work on Your Analysis!
Due Monday @5:00: Initial Claim for
Critical Analysis (Critical Analysis)
Blogging: 4 posts for last week
(Week 9) and this week (Week 10) together.
- Day 1: Loon
Lake (E. L. Doctorow), To Page 93 ("...hand
lifted too late as the signal for the engagement to begin").
- Due at 5:00: Initial Claim (Critical
Analysis)
- Day 2: Loon Lake, To Page 174 ("The only thing
I haven't seen her do is sew the American flag!")
- Day 3: Loon Lake, To End
Week 11 (Nov. 11, 13, and 15)
Due Monday, Class Time: Middle Paragraph (Critical
Analysis)
Due Friday @5:00: Middle Paragraph Critique + Middle
Paragraph Critiqued
Blogging: Four
posts for this week (Week 11) , next week (Week 12), and the
following week (Week 13), together.
- Day 1: "Postmodernism and Feminisms" (Linda Hutcheon);
"Gender Trouble: From Parody to Politics" (Judith Butler)
- Due: Middle Paragraph
- Day 2: from Postmodern Debates: "Postmodern
Blackness" (bell hooks) + "Locations of Culture: The
Postcolonial and the PoMo" (Homi K. Bhabha)
- Day 3: "Subjectivity, Ethics, Politics: Learning to Live
Without the Subject" (Jane Flax)
- Due: Middle Paragraph
Critique/Critiqued
Week 12 (Nov. 18, 20, and 22)
Critical Analysis! Work on It! Time is Flying!
Blogging: Four posts for last week
(Week 11) , this week (Week 12), and next week (Week 13),
together.
- Day 1: Pale
Fire (Vladimir Nabokov) (Introduction + 130 Lines
of Poem + Associated Commentary)
- Day 2: Pale Fire (Finish Canto 2 + Associated
Commentary)
- Day 3: Pale Fire (The Rest of It)
Week 13 (Nov. 25)
Due Tuesday
@5:00: Critical Analysis
Due NEXT Monday @5:00: Any (Optional) Revised
Critical Responses (See Revision Guidelines)
Blogging: Four posts for two weeks
ago (Week 11) , last week (Week 12), and this week (Week 13),
together.
- Day 1: Faculty Panel on “PoMo, Epistemic Humility, and
Intellectual Courage” (Prep reading from Plantinga and/or Smith,
TBA.)
- Due Tuesday @5:00: Critical
Analysis
- Day 2: No Class: Thanksgiving Break
- Day 3: No Class: Thanksgiving Break
Week 14 (Dec. 2, 4, and 6)
Due Monday @5:00: Any (Optional) Revised Critical
Responses (See Revision Guidelines)
Due Wednesday @5:00: Habeas Corpus (Critical Analysis
Followup)
Due Friday @5:00: Reflective Response (Inc.
Mini-Reading of Parks, Loon Lake, Pale Fire,
or NY Trilogy)
Blogging: None. You're done.
- Day 1: City of Glass (from The
New York Trilogy) (Paul Auster)
- Due: Any
(Optional) Revised Critical Responses
- Day 2: Ghosts (from The New York Trilogy)
- Due: Habeas Corpus (Critical
Analysis Followup)
- Day 3: The Locked Room (from The New
York Trilogy)
- Due: Reflective Response (See
Critical Response Packet.) I've set a place to
post these to Blackboard, but it would be great to have them on
your page at the wiki, too, if you'd like. Sometimes these come
out feeling too personal to share, so I won't require wiki
posting, but if you don't mind posting there, please do. (And
listen, I'll take these, with no penalty, up until Wednesday of
finals week, but DO THEM. They're a great chance to do a self
check about what you've learned and also a great chance to
counterbalance any low quiz scores you've gotten this semester.)
Week 15 (Dec. 9 + Final)
Due Monday @ Class: Your Take: Five Big Ideas of PoMo
and Five Big Aesthetic Traits
- Day 1: Let's do the write up of five big ideas from PoMo and
five big aesthetic traits. What I'm looking for here is the
ideas plus some clear explanation, and then the traits plus some
clear explanation. A few sentences for each should work.
Absolutely informal writing; write fast and loose (and funny, if
you can).
- Final/Exam 2: Thursday, December 12, 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
(So it goes.)