CLIT 1010: WAYS OF THINKING, THROUGH LITERATURE

[Current syllabus, texts always here not moodle (pdf's in drive folder below)]

Prof. Daniel F. Vukovich

Time/Venue: Mondays, 1.00--2.50 pm @ CPD-LG.09

Office: 934 RR Shaw, Arts Bldg., Centennial Campus

Office Hours: 3-4 pm Mondays, and by appointment and/or Zoom: [https://hku.zoom.us/my/dfvukovhk]

Email: vukovich@hku.hk *Please allow a 24 hr. response time (also for your tutor).

Tutors & Tutorials:

* Tutorials start Week 3. They are student/discusion centered, 50 minute sessions.

* Sign up via Moodle, before add/drop closes.

Yi Xinyue (Annie) axyyi@hku.hk :

Tuesdays 1-2 pm & 2-3 pm @CRT 9.46

Thursdays 3-4 pm @CRT 9.46

Ma Junlin: jlma@connect.hku.hk :

Mondays: 4-5 pm and 5-6 pm @ CRT-10.69

DESCRIPTION:

This course introduces you to ways of thinking about culture and society through the close-reading of world literature, including poetry as well as realist and experimental fiction. It does this through the literature in itself, which is to say that we emphasize contextual and textual analysis. Literature is part of the world, which is to say it is from its own world but also belongs to ours if we are reading it. Literature is deeply human; it illuminates the past and our own, common problems and lives. But this requires work to see. It also requires certain tools or concepts to excavate and appreciate its meanings and emoptional or mental impacts.

To paraphrase the Roman poet Horace, all art seeks to move, instruct, or delight us. To do this, such texts reflect as well as refract the societies and contexts in which they are made and later -- sometimes much later -- are read. Art makes an implicit – or sometimes explicit -- claim, or even argument about the world. This can be specific, or it can be a general point, or feeling about what it means to live as a human being in a world full of other people. This power of art --whihc is also the power of rhetoric -- can work via the author's intent, or simply through the ways that language and reading and narrative work.

As strong readers and critics in our own time, we must carefully attend to all of this.

Put simply, texts always have something to say to us, right now right here, even if they always speak to their own, past times and contexts. We learn a great deal from reading closely. After all, as humans we share certain problems, issues, and experiences with many other people, even if we also differ from them in other, important ways. We all die. We all live in a society. We all want to feel happy; yet we all struggle and fail in this pursuit.

I will introduce terms from literary criticism (and critical theory) to help guide you in making sense out of our texts and topics (e.g., narration, point of view, ambiguity, allegory, theme, irony, characterization). Other terms will also come up through the readings or secondary sources. Other terms include class/money, modernity, freedom, imagination, existentialism, faith or belief, and the unconscious mind). These terms are not just concepts but also real problems inherent to our lives.

Finally, my teaching philosophy is this: I place you into an encounter with these texts, to enable them to make a mark on you, just as you make a mark on them when you read in a strong, active way.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course students should be better able to these things in an advanced way:

§ Interpret and comment upon literary texts

§ See yourself in the role of academic reader and writer

§ Understand some key terms and issues in literary and cultural analysis

TEXTS:

1 . PDFs at https://sites.google.com/view/classwebprofvukovichhku/clit-1010-literature-ways-of-thinking. Look for the pdfs by author name, in the folder entitled "CLIT 1010 READINGS" in the first, top left folder below Week 13 (It links to G-drive where the pdfs are).

Please note that this website, and not Moodle, is our place for class readings and hand-outs. We will still use Moodle for turning in assignments.

2. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground [Vintage ed., trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky. [Available as pdf but you can also buy a cheap copy online, in same edition please.]

3. Class Notes: I will upload lecture notes and more at our googlesite. If you cannot find something there, let me know.

GRADING:

100% Continuous Assessment

*Prompts for each paper will be given to you a week or two in advance.

Breakdown:

20% for Tutorial Activities, Participation and Short Assignments.

*First Tutorial Meeting: Week 3. Sign-up through Moodle. details tba

25% for Paper 1. 500-600 words. via Moodle. Essay 1 due Thursday, October 8 via Moodle @ 4 pm.

25% for Paper 2. 750 words. via Moodle. Essay 2 Due Friday Nov. 6 via Moodle by 4 pm

30% for Paper 3. 750 words. Due: via Moodle December details tba

LATE WORK POLICY:

1. Late work is NOT accepted, except under verified medical/other emergencies. If you need an extension, request one a week in advance (email our tutor and myself) with a new due date.

2. You must complete ALL major assignments to pass the course, including tutorials.

PLAGIARISM:

A writer who presents the ideas or words of another as if they were the writer’s own, commits plagiarism. This is a disciplinary offense that can result in failure or expulsion, or at the very least penalized grades. Consult This Link from HKU.

This includes all versions of AI. Do not use AI to write your papers. (You can consult it, read it, play with it all you like, but you have to use your own words and voice in your papers.) If you have questions about how or when to use and cite other people, texts, AI engines, or websites, just ask. If we detect AI usage we will have to ask you to resubmit your essay, deduct your grade, or fail that assignment.

WORK SCHEDULE

If you miss class, it is your responsibility to find out if there are changes or new assignments. YOU MUST BRING THE READINGS WITH YOU TO CLASS (the current week and the previous one as well). Soft copies are allowed.

"Recommended" readings are not required but can help illuminate the texts or lectures.

Week 1, Sept 7: Syllabus Review. Some keywords. Close reading or revision. Ambiguity.

Readings (done in class this day):

1. Margaret Atwood, "Happy Endings." https://www.sjsu.edu/people/julie.sparks/courses/100Wfall2016/HappyEndings.pdf

2. Robert Frost: “The Road Not Taken.” Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry. https://poets.org/poem/road-not-taken

3 . Recommended: http://literarydevices.net/ambiguity/ This is a useful site. “Ambiguity” is one of the distinguishing traits of modern literature and culture, and perhaps of language itself .

Take-away Points: close-reading as a method; self-deception; death; illusions versus realities; ambiguity.

Week 2, Sept 14: Symbolism and Allegory.

Readings:

1. Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction

2. Heinrich Boll, "Christmas Everyday." Short Fiction: A Critical Collection. Eds . James R. Frakes and Isadore Traschen.

3. https://literarydevices.net/?s=allegory

4. https://literarydevices.net/symbolism/

2. Le Guin : https://interestingliterature.com/2021/02/ursula-le-guin-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-summary-analysis/

Take-away concepts: Symbolism; allegory; ambiguity; historical contexts; guilt; responsibility; ethics’ the ‘real’ world vs. the story world.

Week 3, Sept 21: Reading Poetry, Seeing Poetically. William Carlos Williams. “No ideas but in things.”

*These are short poems but re-read them. Pause on the words and at the ends of lines, and read the poems out loud (even if quietly to yourself). Read them all straight through, and then go back and re-read them one or more times. They are short enough to do this.

Readings: William Carlos Williams: Read all the poems.

Take-aways: “the ordinary” (things and people) is extraordinary; perception; destruction of what is worn out; ‘make it new’; perception; imagination; “no ideas but in things”; materialism; imagism; modernity.

Week 4, Sept 28: Being a Poet: 2: Wallace Stevens: “the poem of the mind.” “Have it your way.”

*Re-read them. Use a proper dictionary for all the strange words he offers. This is essential for Stevens.

Readings: Wallace Stevens: Read all poems in the pdf.

Take-aways: power of the imagination; search for meaning after death of god & religion; modernity and modernism (vs realism); exhaustion of language; non-relation between words and things; power of the mind and consciousness; will.

Week 5, Oct. 5 : Point of View. 3rd Person Narrators and Meaning. Freedom?

Readings:

1. Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (7th edition).

2. Stephen Crane, select poems (from Poetryfoundation.org. ): “A Man Said to the Universe,” “I saw a man pursuing the horizon,” “Behold, the grave of a wicked man,” “In the Desert.”

Take-away concepts: Realism (as philosophy); Structure; Irony; Sarcasm or Mock-Heroic; Naturalism; Determinism [the last two overlap].

Essay 1 due Thursday, October 8 by 4 pm latest, via moodle

Week 6, Oct. 12: READING WEEK

Week 7, Oct 19: No Class. Chung Yeung Festival (Double Ninth). Public holiday

Week 8, Oct 26: Point of View. Ambiguity. Modernism & Minimalism.

Readings:

1. Raymond Carver, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

2. Ernest Hemingway, " A Clean, Well Lighted Place."

3. Recommended: Raymond Carver, “Cathedral.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (7th edition).

Recommended: https://philosophynow.org/issues/94/Nobody_Said_Anything by Meghan Bidwell.

https://iep.utm.edu/nihilism/#H3

https://supervalentthought.com/most-famous-existentialists/

Take-aways: Realism/Minimalism (style); existentialism or nothingness (curse/sickness of existence); nihilism; language as a problem; the incommunicable.

Week 9, Nov. 2: Point of View. Stream of consciousness. Class, Money, Marriage.

1. Tillie Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing.” Tell Me A Riddle. (Dell Press, 1961.)

2. D.H Lawrence, “The Rocking Horse Winner.” The Heath Introduction to Literature, eds Alice S. Landy, William Rodney Allen.

Recommended:

1. Olsen, ‘Tell Me A Riddle” & “I Want You Women Up North To Know.”<< pdfs in folder below

2. short analysis of "I Stand..." https://shortstoryproject.com/stories/i-stand-here-ironing/

3. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tillie-Olsen

Take-aways: Motherhood [single]; money; class; Gender [and class]; marriage; realism in style and content; capitalism (or simply the power of money/class) determines one’s freedom and chance.

Essay 2 Due Friday Nov. 6 via Moodle by 4 pm latest

[Final Module of Course: Advanced Interpretation]

Week 10, Nov 9: Narration. Death. Consciousness.

Readings: Katherine Anne Porter, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall."

Take-aways: stream of consciousness and interior monologue [narration]; point of view; characterization; consciousness; death; gender/marriage/patriarchy; Freud’s model of the mind.

2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3115290/ >> Freud and Consciousness.

3. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katherine-Anne-Porter << short biography

Week 11, Nov 16: A Fool’s Life: Irony, Evil, Faith, Ambiguity

Readings:

1. Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimpel the Fool."

2. Recommended: Secondary sources:

1. Overview and extracts of criticism here: : https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/gimpel-fool Note the extracts from Siegel and Kazin in particular.

2. https://observer.com/2007/01/isaac-bashevis-singer-comes-back-from-dead-as-the-antitheist/ Ron Rosenbaum. [Gimpel as allegory of Judaism and faith more broadly. ]

Take-aways: irony; faith; advanced ambiguity and meaning; wisdom; acceptance; [allegory of faith in general]

Week 12, Nov 23: Advanced Irony and Ambiguity: "Kafkaesque"

Readings:

1. Franz Kafka, "The Judgment" (WTH is the point of this story?)

2. Franz Kafka, "The Hunger Artist" (WTH does he do this to himself?)

Recommended: https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/the-judgment/ ; “The Persistence of Patriarchy in Franz Kafka’s ‘‘Judgment’’” David Pan, Washington Univ., https://escholarship.org/content/qt52s1g580/qt52s1g580_noSplash_62681b7be2aa23c5e18138850af02499.pdf

Takeaways: Absurdity; irrationality vs rationality; self-love vs narcissism; ego and super-ego; alienation; power or authority.

Week 13, Nov 30: The Curse of Modern Existence: Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground.

Takeaways: ethical and moral responsibility; consciousness as a problem; rationality and modernity as problems; existentialism; ego/egoism ; progress/progressivism; class/cultural capital.

Readings:

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground. (Vintage Classics edition.) READ PART 1: UNDERGROUND, and more if you wish.

b. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/

c. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/15040 (need library log in)

d. short videos explicating the novel, from a professor of psychology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVK4dptbPM (E. Dodson)

PAPER #3 ASSIGNED: DUE FRIDAY DEC 12, AT NOON. VIA MOODLE AS BEFORE.

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