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This is the syllabus of English 226 for Fall 2010.

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Friday, August 27

First day: introductions and course outline, reading Wordsworth's "Solitary Reaper"

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Monday, August 30

• T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917, anthology 2287) and companion readings
  • Robert Harrison of Stanford (and the podcast Entitled Opinions) on Prufrock and Dante
  • Contemporary Literary Criticism Select (subscription only): Eliot
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Eliot as poet

Linking passages: group 1

Also, everyone should post on the discussion board a paragraph of self-introduction. Say whatever you like, from the standard hometown/year/major info to quirkier things about yourself. This will help us get to know each other and also establish that everyone is able to use the discussion board.

Note: here and throughout this syllabus, the first (less indented) list of readings is required, while the second (more indented) list of readings is supplemental and optional. Here, for example, Eliot's poem and that companion readings are required, while the other links are optional.

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Wednesday, September 1

• Eliot, The Waste Land (1922, anthology 2297)
  • Eliot reading the poem

  • "The Wasteland and Modernity," an episode of the excellent BBC podcast In Our Time

  • LOLcat Waste Land

Linking passages: group 2

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Friday, September 3

• Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919, anthology 2326)

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 1 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #1.

Remember that your responses can be about the week's reading as a whole, not only the shorter readings I provide for Friday.

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Monday, September 6

• Woolf, first part of Mrs. Dalloway (1925, anthology 2338-2379)

  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Woolf as novelist and essayist

  • This collaborative site on Mrs. Dalloway has a lot of material that can help orient you in the novel.

  • In Our Time on Literary Modernism

Linking passages: group 3

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Wednesday, September 8

• Woolf, second part of Mrs. Dalloway (1925, anthology 2380-2437)

Linking passages: group 4

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Friday, September 10

• Selections from the MLA's Approaches to Teaching Mrs. Dalloway

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 4 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #1.

Remember that your responses can be about the week's reading as a whole, not only the shorter readings I provide for Friday.

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Monday, September 13

• Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)

Linking passages: group 5

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Wednesday, September 15

• John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World (1907)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Synge as dramatist

Linking passages: group 6

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Friday, September 17

• Woolf, "The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection" (anthology 2334)

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 2 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #2.

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Monday, September 20

• James Joyce, "Araby," "Eveline," and "Clay," from Dubliners (1914, anthology 2218, 2222, and 2225)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Joyce as novelist and short-fiction writer

  • The Modern World, which produces excellent author pages, has an extensive one devoted to Joyce.

  • IQ infinity: the unknown James Joyce is a huge complex of useful pages by Jorn Barger.

  • Edward J. Maloney and David F. Fanning of Ohio State maintain the James Joyce Resource Center, with a bibliography of books, a timeline, and "casebooks" of references to Joyce scholarship grouped by critical approach.

  • Yet another very good site: The James Joyce Portal

Linking passages: group 1

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Wednesday, September 22

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS
FOR STUDENTS WRITING PAPERS

• Joyce, "The Dead" (anthology 2229), from Dubliners

Linking passages: group 2

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Friday, September 24

• Margot Norris, "Not the Girl She Was at All: Women in 'The Dead'"
• John Paul Riquelme, "For Whom the Snow Taps: Style and Repetition in 'The Dead'"

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 5 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #2.

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Monday, September 27

• Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), pages 3-158
  • In Our Time on Portrait

Linking passages: group 3

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Wednesday, September 29

• Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, pages 159-276

Linking passages: group 4

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Friday, October 1

FIRST EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at the usual class time

or

submit your paper under my office door by 3:00 p.m.

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Monday, October 4

• Speeches on Irish independence (anthology 2165-2173)

• William Butler Yeats, "Easter 1916" (1916, anthology 2181) and "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1922, anthology 2180)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Yeats as poet and essayist

  • Two episodes of In Our Time: Yeats and Irish Politics and Yeats and Mysticism

Linking passages: group 5

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Wednesday, October 6

• Joyce, "Calypso" and "Cyclops" episodes from Ulysses (1922)

Linking passages: group 6

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Friday, October 8

• Vincent J. Cheng, "Authenticity and Identity: Catching the Irish Spirit"

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 3 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #3.

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Monday, October 11

• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1899)

• Encyclopedia Britannica on Tristan Tzara

• Tzara, "Dadaism"
  • Wilde's famous trials have inspired two excellent sites. The Bobst Library at NYU has built a spectacular web version of their exhibition commemorating the centennial of the trials: Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces. Though less polished and flashy, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School's site on the trials also contains a wealth of interesting information.

  • The National Gallery of Art's online exhibition of Dada

  • Tzara, "L'amiral Cherche Une Maison à Louer" (sound recording, item #2 on the linked page)

Linking passages: group 1

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Wednesday, October 13

• Tom Stoppard, Travesties (1974)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Stoppard

  • British Writers (subscription only): Stoppard

Linking passages: group 2

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Friday, October 15

No class today: we will have midsemester conferences.

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FALL BREAK

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Monday, October 25

• Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952)
  • Compare! The Marx Brothers, from Duck Soup (1933) and The Lucky speech on film
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography: Beckett as playwright and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Beckett (subscription only)
  • Apmonia: a site for Samuel Beckett by The Modern World, has an impressive array of top-notch information available from its long front page, including a biography, articles, reviews, notes on productions, and an image gallery.

  • The University of California at Santa Barbara hosts The Samuel Beckett Endpage, a strong site although probably second to Apmonia.

  • J. M. Coetzee in The New York Review of Books on "The Making of Samuel Beckett"
  • A Beckett discovery

Linking passages: group 3

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Wednesday, October 27

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS
FOR STUDENTS WRITING PAPERS

• Beckett, Endgame (1958)

Linking passages: group 4

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Friday, October 29

• Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape (1958)

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 6 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #3.

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Monday, November 1

• Martin McDonagh, The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001)
  • British Writers: McDonagh and Contemporary Authors Online: McDonagh (subscription only)

Linking passages: group 5

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Wednesday, November 3

• All anthology readings from Eavan Boland and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (anthology 2777 and 2791)
• Dictionary of Literary Biography: Boland as poet and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Boland (subscription only)
• Contemporary Authors Online: Ní Dhomhnaill

Linking Passages: group 6

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Friday, November 5

SECOND EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at the usual class time

or

submit your paper under my office door by 3:00 p.m.

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Monday, November 8

• George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1950) and "Shooting an Elephant" (1936, anthology 2567)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Orwell as essayist

  • In Our Time on The British Empire

Linking passages: group 1

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Wednesday, November 10

• Geoge Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1913)
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Shaw as playwright

Linking passages: group 2

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Friday, November 12

• Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), pages 3-95
  • British Writers (subscription only): Winterson

  • Dictionary of Literary Biography (subscription only): Winterson

Linking passages: group 3

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Monday, November 15

• Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, pages 91-176

Linking passages: group 4

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Wednesday, November 17

• Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000), 1-102
• Dictionary of Literary Biography: Smith and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select: Smith (subscription only)
• In Our Time on The British Empire's Legacy

Linking passages: group 5

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Friday, November 19

• Smith, "Speaking in Tongues," either as audio (strongly recommended) or as text

Seminar A meets in the regular classroom, with group 1 doing responses. Seminar B (groups 4, 5, and 6) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #4.

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Monday, November 22

• Smith, White Teeth, 103-217

Linking passages: group 6

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Wednesday, November 24

NO CLASS TODAY: keep trucking with the reading for next week.

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THANKSGIVING BREAK

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Monday, November 29

• Smith, White Teeth, 218-340

Linking passages: group 1

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Wednesday, December 1

• Smith, White Teeth, 341-448

Linking passages: group 2

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Friday, December 3

• John Clement Ball, from Imagining London
• James Procter, "New Ethnicities, the Novel, and the Burdens of Representation"

Seminar B meets in the regular classroom, with group 4 doing responses. Seminar A (groups 1, 2, and 3) does responses and meets in small groups, led by group member #4.

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Monday, December 6

PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS
FOR STUDENTS WRITING PAPERS

• Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette (screenplay of 1986 film)
  • British Writers (subscription only): Kureishi

  • Contemporary Literary Criticism (subscription only): Kureishi

Linking passages: group 3

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Wednesday, December 8

• Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette (film, 1986)

No linking passages today--we will take some time to discuss how the class has gone.

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Friday, December 10

Last day: We will wrap up and weep for the lack of further class sessions.

Bring your small group retrospective to class.

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Thursday, December 16

FINAL EXAM/PAPER DATE:

Take the exam in the classroom at 9:00 a.m.

or

submit your paper under my office door by noon

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Erik Simpson | simpsone@grinnell.edu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.