to consider before the midterm
amlit338
I've got a moment before Spanish, so I thought I'd jot down a few notes, based mostly on your contributions to the "theme" discussion. So, while you review the materials for the midterm, consider the following:
--intersections between culture (especially music), history, and the books we've been reading. Consider how the music affects the characters (fiction or non-) in what we've read, and how authors use it to bring out their own concerns. Draw a map of music in Ginsberg, Herr, Komanyaka, and Morrison. And listen while you study!
--sex and gender: Ginsberg and homosexuality against the backdrop of the McCarthy era and "homosexuals are communists" line used to rid the government of homosexuals; relationships between the sexes (such as they are) in O'Connor and in Komanyakaa and Morrison. The missing women of _Dispatches_.
--violence, as Chris notes on the blog, is a crucial aspect of the literature we've read. Why so much violence? How do historical circumstances create violence in families.
--race (and music, and history, and the literature).
--genre: think about why the texts we've read stretch our usual sense of genre. Herr is episodic, not written like traditional journalism; Morrison's novel is poetic; Ginsberg's poem is a catalogue; Komunyakaa's poetry is in a form usually used to write about nature and other, less explosive issues. The moon, the mist! Think about why the texts we read are written in the ways they are. You might consider other possibilities as a "control." For example, what if Morrison's book had an omnicient narrator and a straightforward plot line? What if Ginsberg wrote sonnets?
--humor, wit. Where are these writers funny and how does their wit affect our reception of their work? What kind of humor do they use?
--your choice here.
Also, at some point I'll talk a bit about the way in which the work we're reading responds to larger concerns in American literature. One of the touchstones of most American literature is the transcendentalist ideal of Emerson, Whitman and, to some extent Whitman, that the individual is powerful, self-sufficient, and ultimately (still) a democrat (small-d). The books we've read are by writers who see the seams and flaws in this notion, born in the 1840s (when blacks were slaves and women couldn't work or vote), and write about a world in which many if not most of us are defined and limited by social and political constraints. Remind me to have a rant on this subject when I return from the land of the cowboy.
aloha, Susan
I've got a moment before Spanish, so I thought I'd jot down a few notes, based mostly on your contributions to the "theme" discussion. So, while you review the materials for the midterm, consider the following:
--intersections between culture (especially music), history, and the books we've been reading. Consider how the music affects the characters (fiction or non-) in what we've read, and how authors use it to bring out their own concerns. Draw a map of music in Ginsberg, Herr, Komanyaka, and Morrison. And listen while you study!
--sex and gender: Ginsberg and homosexuality against the backdrop of the McCarthy era and "homosexuals are communists" line used to rid the government of homosexuals; relationships between the sexes (such as they are) in O'Connor and in Komanyakaa and Morrison. The missing women of _Dispatches_.
--violence, as Chris notes on the blog, is a crucial aspect of the literature we've read. Why so much violence? How do historical circumstances create violence in families.
--race (and music, and history, and the literature).
--genre: think about why the texts we've read stretch our usual sense of genre. Herr is episodic, not written like traditional journalism; Morrison's novel is poetic; Ginsberg's poem is a catalogue; Komunyakaa's poetry is in a form usually used to write about nature and other, less explosive issues. The moon, the mist! Think about why the texts we read are written in the ways they are. You might consider other possibilities as a "control." For example, what if Morrison's book had an omnicient narrator and a straightforward plot line? What if Ginsberg wrote sonnets?
--humor, wit. Where are these writers funny and how does their wit affect our reception of their work? What kind of humor do they use?
--your choice here.
Also, at some point I'll talk a bit about the way in which the work we're reading responds to larger concerns in American literature. One of the touchstones of most American literature is the transcendentalist ideal of Emerson, Whitman and, to some extent Whitman, that the individual is powerful, self-sufficient, and ultimately (still) a democrat (small-d). The books we've read are by writers who see the seams and flaws in this notion, born in the 1840s (when blacks were slaves and women couldn't work or vote), and write about a world in which many if not most of us are defined and limited by social and political constraints. Remind me to have a rant on this subject when I return from the land of the cowboy.
aloha, Susan
posted by Susan at 1:18 PM
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