Week 1 of Class
Tuesday, August 27: Class Introductions, Syllabus Discussion, and course tech overview (WordPress and Canvas workshop); introductory discussion.
Thursday, August 29: Franny Choi, “The World Keeps on Ending, and the World Goes On“; Shakespeare’s The Tempest 2.2. [Content Notice (hereafter CN): ableism, colonialism, racism]
Week 2
Tuesday, September 3: Equiano, ch. 1-2 [CN: graphic violence]; Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 episode 1. [CN: colonialism, graphic violence, racism, slavery]
Thursday, September 5: Equiano, ch. 11-12; Wheatley (all poems).; watch Nikole Hannah-Jones interview with Trevor Noah, Feb 2020
and “Why did Phillis Wheatley disappear?”
Week 3
Tuesday, September 10: Soyinka, act 1 (available in the bookstore and on reserve in Lamson!); Oxford Reference entry on “total theatre“; Ruth Wilson’s “After Empire: Chinua Achebe and the great African novel.” [CN: colonialism, racism, rape, sexual coercion, suicide]
Thursday, September 12: Soyinka, act 2; Uzor Maxim Uzoatu’s “Sacred suicide: Re-reading Soyinka’s Death And The King’s Horseman forty years after“; Cheryl Savageau, poems.
Week 4
Tuesday, September 17: Soyinka, acts 3-4.
Thursday, September 19: Soyinka, act 5; Travis Chi Wing Lau, “On Virality, Corona or Otherwise.”
Week 5
Tuesday, September 24: Danticat, 3-68; [CN: graphic violence, misogyny, police brutality, racism, torture]
Thursday, September 26: Danticat, 69-120; Rodriguez’s “undocumented black boy.” [CN: deportation]
Week 6
Tuesday, October 1: Danticat, 121-181; Joy Harjo (selections).
Thursday, October 3: Danticat, 183-242; Dawnland Voices (vol 9)
Week 7
Tuesday, October 8: First Projects workshop day in class! You can find details on our Assignments page if you scroll down to “Projects, Literature Classes.” You can find past student projects categorized as “Archived Projects.”
- Brainstorm: Complete a brainstorming activity like freewriting, listing/bulleting, 3 perspectives, or so on.
- Drafting: Put pen to paper / fingers to keyboard and get your words down, the great ones and the ones you feel uninspired about. Aim for at least a paragraph of material for now, but don’t feel like you need to finish a draft. Progress – any progress – is the point!
- Writing Center: Visit the PSU Writing Center to discuss what you’ve written so far. (The Writing Center can email you a summary of your session, which you can post to Canvas.)
Looking for sample projects as you brainstorm? Check out these examples from Fall 2020 posted on the Ellen Reeder, PSU English’s program blog:
On days like this one when we’re working on Projects, your Daily Posts are different. You have three options and, as usual, two are expected. Each Post you complete should be posted to the Canvas Discussion for today.
Thursday, October 10: Sakuntala’s story from The Mahabharata (Book 1, Sections LXIX-LXXIV), Kalidasa‘s play Shakuntala, prologue and acts 1-2, and Rasa aesthetic theory.
First Projects due by the end of the day on Friday, October 11 (11:59 pm).
Week 8
Tuesday, October 15: Kalidasa, act 3-4; overview of Said’s Orientalism, as well as this review.
Thursday, October 17: Kalidasa, act 5-6; Tagore, selections:
Week 9
Tuesday, October 22: Kalidasa, act 7; Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream” and Lewton’s “Feminist Visions of Science and Utopia in Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s ‘Sultana’s Dream.’”
Thursday, October 24: Nguyen Du, Wikipedia plot summary, Author’s Opening Words, episodes 1-5 (roughly the first fifth, depending on edition); [CN: sex work and trafficking, rape, attempted suicide]; Kevin Nguyen’s “This Fucked Me Up: Ken Burns’s The Vietnam War“; Teresa Mei Chuc, all. [CN: war]
Week 10
Tuesday, October 29: Chikamatsu, act 1; Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, selections. [CN: sex work and trafficking, suicide]; If you’d like to see the original 1926 edition of Asatarō Miyamori’s translations, you can find it here on Google Books.
Optional supplement: First third of film adaptation of Chikamatsu’s play, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1969 film Double Suicide. [CN: sex, suicide]
Thursday, October 31: Chikamatsu, act 2; Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, selection, and Motoko Rich’s “A Novelist Breaks the Code of Being a Woman in Japan.” [CN: sex work and trafficking, suicide]
Week 11
Tuesday, November 5: Election Day! Prof. Helms’s classes are canceled. Go vote!
Thursday, November 7: Chikamatsu, act 3; Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, all. [CN: war]
Optional: Finish film adaptation of Chikamatsu’s play, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1969 film Double Suicide.
Week 12
Tuesday, November 12: read the critical introduction and Act III of The Ghost Stories at Yotsuya on the Tokaido (Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan), by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, Translated by Paul B. Kennelly (p. 136-147)
Thursday, November 14: Finish the excerpts of Act V of The Ghost Stories at Yotsuya on the Tokaido (p. 147-163)
Week 13
Tuesday, November 19: Watch Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (in class, DVD on reserve)
Thursday, November 21: Watch Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (in class, DVD on reserve)
Week 14
Tuesday, November 26: No class! Designated catch-up day (which includes catching up on REST.)
Thursday, November 28: No class! Happy Turkey Day!
Week 15
Tuesday, December 3: In class project workshops for the Second Project.
Thursday, December 5: Catch-up day, TBD. (Likely continued second project workshops.)
Second Projects due by the end of the day on Friday, December 6 (11:59 PM).
Finals, Week 16
Our final exam period will be Thursday, December 12th, from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM.
We’ll be sharing our favorite projects from the semester and reflecting on the arc of the course. Individual reflections will be posted to WordPress, and I’ll ask you to talk through your Reflection during the Final Exam 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 Exam 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 to three of the below. Your post(s) 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 Exam period, we’ll go around and bring up one of each person’s post(s) in turn. You can choose to either talk through your post live or to play your prerecorded video.
All finalized posts and projects have a deadline of the end of the day on Thursday, December 12 (11:59 PM).
Sprockets and Springes 