Jan 16: Introduction: Critical Opinion; Critical Position; and Validation. | |
Jan 18: Critical Theory and Postmodern Fiction. “Introduction,” A Postmodern Reader (vii-8). | |
Jan 23: Hans Bertens, “The Postmodern Weltanschauung and its Relation to Modernism,” A Postmodern Reader (25-70). | |
Jan 25: Jean-François Lyotard, excerpt from The Postmodern Condition, A Postmodern Reader (71-90). | |
Jan 30: Paul Auster, City of Glass. | |
Feb 1: Paul Auster, City of Glass. | |
Feb 6: Paul Auster, City of Glass. | |
Feb 8: Paul Auster, City of Glass. Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, “Paul Auster’s City of Glass,” (UB Learns). | |
Feb 13: Jacques Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” A Postmodern Reader (223-42). | |
Feb 15: Linda Hutcheon, “Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism,” A Postmodern Reader (243-72). MLA Citation Style and Works Cited. | |
Feb 20: Fredric Jameson, excerpt from “Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” A Postmodern Reader (312-32). | |
First essay due in class, 5-7 pages. | |
Feb 22: Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simulacra,” A Postmodern Reader (342-75). | |
Feb 27: In the ruins of the future. Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis. | |
Mar 1: Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis. | |
Mar 6: Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis. | |
Mar 8: Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis. | |
Mar 13: Spring Recess | |
Mar 15: Spring Recess | |
Mar 20: Michel Foucault, excerpts from The History of Sexuality, A Postmodern Reader (333-41). | |
Mar 22: Barbara Creed, “From Here to Modernity: Feminism and Postmodernism,” A Postmodern Reader (398-418). | |
Mar 27: One woman’s tale. Kathy Acker, Don Quixote. | |
Second essay due in class, 5-7 pages. | |
Mar 29: Kathy Acker, Don Quixote. | |
Apr 3: Kathy Acker, Don Quixote. | |
Apr 5: Kathy Acker, Don Quixote. | |
Apr 10: Cornel West, “Black Culture and Postmodernism,” A Postmodern Reader (390-97). bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness,” A Postmodern Reader (510-18). | |
Apr 12: Houston A. Baker, Jr., “Hybridity, the Rap Race, and Pedagogy for the 1990s,” A Postmodern Reader (538-50). | |
Apr 17: Thomas Kuhn, “The Resolution of Revolutions,” A Postmodern Reader (376-89). | |
Apr 19: Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” (UB Learns). | |
Apr 24: Donna Haraway, “Cyborg Manifesto.” | |
Final research paper, 8-10 pages. | |
Apr 26: Conclusions and evaluations. |
Required Texts:
Acker, Kathy. Don Quixote. New York: Grove
Atlantic, 1989.
Auster, Paul. City of Glass. New York: Penguin, 1987.
DeLillo, Don. Cosmopolis. New York: Scribner, 2004.
Natoli, Joseph, and Linda Hutcheon, eds. A Postmodern Reader. Albany:
SUNY Press, 1993.
All texts for the course can be found at Talking Leaves Bookstore, 3158 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214; (716) 837-8554.
Course Requirements:
Attendance in class and participation in discussion for English 301 is mandatory; two 5-7 page papers and a research paper of 8-10 pages.
Papers: Neatly printed copies must be presented in class on the day indicated on the syllabus. These copies should adhere to the following format: a cover page with a title for your essay, your name, the course number and title, the date; typed, double-spaced with one-inch margins; all pages numbered; stapled. The paper should be proofread for grammatical and typographical errors.
Late policy: Late assignments will be accepted only by prior arrangement with me. Failure to seek approval before the due date will result in a penalty of one grade increment per class meeting.
Plagiarism: All secondary materials, either from print or online sources, must be properly attributed. Plagiarism of a paper—either in whole or in part, especially including sources downloaded from the Internet—will result in an immediate failure for the assignment, or the course, at the instructor’s discretion.
Attendance: Noted on a daily basis. Absence from more than four classes during the course of the semester will result in a final grade deduction, up to and including failure for the course, at the instructor’s discretion.
Grading: 50% for the two papers; 40% for the critical essay; and 10% for attendance and participation in the class discussion list.
Last revised on Thursday, November 30, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Joseph M. Conte. All Rights Reserved.