Course Schedule, Spring 2024 (16 weeks)
Week 1
Tuesday, January 23: Syllabus review and class introductions.
Thursday, January 25:
Readings
William Wordsworth, “The Idiot Boy” (audio at Librivox, track 9) [always feel free to skim the linked author biographies]
Charlotte Smith, “Sonnet: On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic” (1783);
Barker and Murray, “Introduction: On Reading Disability in Literature”
Definitions of disability (Medical model, Social model) and ableism.
For further information on intersectionality and dis/ability, check out Intersectionality and Disability.
Connecting Intersectional approaches to Habits of Mind
Week 2
Tuesday, January 30: Read act 1 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet [content notice (hereafter “cn”): ableism, depression, misogyny, murder, suicide]; our primary text in class will be Lisa Peterson’s translation of Hamlet from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Play On! Project.
- Term clarification: Medieval and Renaissance (Early Modern)
- ADHD and delayed choices (Key terms: Normativity, Neurotypical, Neurodiverse/divergent)
Optional materials to skim before class:
Watch the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2009 production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant
If you’d like a more fully contemporary English translation of the play to read alongside the original, check out No Fear Shakespeare.
Hamlet as corpse (Slings and Arrows clip of Darren Nichols)
Hamlet as inaction and adaptation (Last Action Hero clip)
“Oh that this too too ___ flesh” (RSC 2009 clip, linked above)
Ian Holm, 1990, To thine own self be true (0:45-2:15)
Bill Murray, 2000, To thine own self be true (2:42)
Oliver Ford Davies, RSC 2009, To thine own self be true (linked above)
Thursday, February 1: act 2 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Read William Blake, “The Tyger” (1794)
Week 3
Tuesday, February 6: act 3 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Read pdf of Mary Robinson‘s “The Maniac,” 602-605; Read Jay Dolmage’s “An Archive and Anatomy of Disability Myths” (book);
Mel Gibson, 1990, To be or not to be (3:46)
Thursday, February 8: acts 4-5 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Read William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1807/1815); Read Laurie Block’s “Stereotypes About People With Disabilities”;
- Visual texts of Ophelia:
Week 4
Tuesday, February 13: Read preface, letters, and volume one of Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein (1818 edition!) before class. [cn: ableism, corpses, murder]; Read John Keats, “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” (1817); Read “Keywords, Disability”; Read Amanda Pagan’s “A Brief History of Gothic Horror.”
Thursday, February 15: Read the second volume of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Read Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias” (1818); read “Keywords, Human”
Looking for ideas for your First Project? Check out these sample Unessays from the Ellen Reeder, PSU English’s program blog:
Week 5
Tuesday, February 20: Read the third volume of Frankenstein; Read Anna Letitia Barbauld, “Life” (1825)
- Prometheus, Golems, Moana, oh my!
Thursday, February 22: Read John Keats‘ “Hyperion” (excerpt) and summary (1818); Read Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Mariana” (1830).
Week 6
Tuesday, February 27: Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre, ch 1-10 [cn: ableism, child abuse, death, domestic violence, misogyny, racism]; Emily Brontë, “I Am the Only Being Whose Doom” (1846)
If you’d prefer accompanying video, check out the following (which covers the next five weeks of class reading!):
“Jane Eyre” , directed by Charlotte Brontë, and Susanna White. , produced by Diederick Santer, British Broadcasting Corporation, and Boston WGBH. , BBC Worldwide, 2006. Alexander Street.
Episode 1: https://libproxy.plymouth.edu/login?url=https://video.alexanderstreet.com/p/QkgoVBYwL
Episode 2: https://libproxy.plymouth.edu/login?url=https://video.alexanderstreet.com/p/Og6mQplGp
(This was originally four episodes, but Alexander Street has it uploaded in two two-hour segments.)
Thursday, Feb 29: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 11-15; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnets from the Portuguese 22” (1850)
Week 7
Tuesday, March 5: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 16-20; reflecting on the first half of the semester.
Thursday, March 7: Today we’ll be workshopping First Projects in class. Come prepared to discuss and work on whatever stage of the project you’re at today.
First Unessay Projects due by the end of the day on Friday, March 8. (The deadline for these Projects is Sunday, March 17.)
Week 8
Spring Break!
Week 9
Tuesday, March 19: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 21-26; Christina Rossetti, “After Death” (1862);
Thursday, March 21: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 27-30; Check out the summary of Gilbert and Gubar’s work; read Tyrese L. Coleman’s “Reading Jane Eyre While Black.”
Week 10
Tuesday, March 26: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 31-34; Gerard Manly Hopkins, “Carrion Comfort” (1889/1919)
Thursday, March 28: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ch 35-38; William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (1890)
Week 11
Tuesday, April 2: In class, watch Thorold Dickinson‘s 1940 film Gaslight, an adaptation of Patrick Hamilton‘s 1938 play Gas Light; be sure to take notes, as Questions posts can be published after class on the film; discuss Gaslight with remaining class time. (Lamson Library also has a copy of the DVD on reserve.)
Thursday, April 4: Read T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” (1915); finish discussing Gaslight in class. Questions posts for today may be on Eliot or Gaslight.
Week 12
Tuesday, April 9: Read Jean Rhys‘s Wide Sargasso Sea, 1-41 [cn: ableism, domestic violence, racism and racist language, rape, suicide]; Yeats, “Second Coming,” (1920).
Thursday, April 11: Read Rhys 41-80. No synchronous class. (I’ll be traveling to the Shakespeare Association of America conference this week.)
Week 13
Tuesday, April 16: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, 80-124; W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939” (1940).
Tuesday, April 18: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, 124-171; Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night” (1947).
Week 14
Tuesday, April 23: Silvia Moreno-Garcia‘s Mexican Gothic, ch 1-9, p 1-104 [cn: ableism, eugenics, racism, murder, rape, suicide];; Virginia Woolf, “The Death of the Moth” (1942); and the entry for “eugenics” in Keywords for Disability Studies (74-79)
Thursday, April 25: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, ch 10-19, p 105-208; Sylvia Plath, “Ella Mason and her Eleven Cats” pp. 233-4 (1956)
Week 15
Tuesday, April 30: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, ch 20-27, p 209-301; Seamus Heaney on “bog bodies“, “Bog Queen” (scroll down!) from North (1975).
Thursday, May 2: Today we’ll be workshopping Second Projects in class. Come prepared to discuss and work on whatever stage of the project you’re at today.
Second Unessay Projects due by the end of the day on Tuesday, May 7.
Final Meetings, Week 16
Our final meeting period will be Thursday, May 9, 9:00 – 10:30 AM in Lamson 124.
We’ll be sharing our favorite projects from the semester and reflecting on the arc of the course. Individual reflections will be posted to Canvas as a Daily Post, and I’ll ask you to talk through your Reflection during the Final Class Meeting. This is our final class conversation reflecting on the semester. (Treat each of the options below as Reflections posts; you may complete up to all three of these Reflections posts this week if you so choose. If you’d prefer not to talk during our Final Class Meeting, you can prepare an audio or video recording beforehand and put it in your post (60-90 seconds), or contact me for other presentation options.)
Before class, select one of the below. Your post should include either 150-200 words of text or 1-2 minutes of audio, and should link back to the project being discussed or the PSU Habits of Mind page.
#1: Present via a new Weekly Post (can involve audio) your favorite project from the semester that you completed.
#2: Present via a new Weekly Post (can involve audio) your fav project someone ELSE completed this semester
#3: In a new weekly Post, Reflect on the PSU Habit of Mind “Integrated Perspective” and what you’ve learned on that front this semester: what have you learned from class readings, discussions, and assignments about “the recognition that individual beliefs, ideas, and values are influenced by personal experience as well as multiple contextual factors—cultural, historical political, etc.”?
During our Final Class Meeting, we’ll go around and bring up each person’s post in turn. You can choose to either talk through your post live or to play your prerecorded video.
The deadline for all work and revisions is the end of the day on Thursday, May 9 (11:59 PM).
Sprockets and Springes 