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office hours: M, W 1:30-3:00, and by appointment
SAC 427 / 610-519-4642 / scott.black@villanova.edu

This course is organized by the assumption that what literature is is often about how it responds to what it was. We’ll be reading texts in pairs and looking at how later works revisit earlier ones—to critique, re-examine, echo, and answer them. Through reading, and viewing, a variety of different kinds of works (plays, novels, films) from a range of different literary and cultural traditions—ancient Greek, Renaissance England, contemporary American, Asian, and African—we’ll examine the ways modern artists have reworked classic texts, retrofitting them for new uses, and adapting them for new media (for instance, turning plays into novels or novels into films). Our focus throughout will be on the practice of reading—how to interpret texts in light of their contexts and other texts, as well as our own experiences of them. To this end, we will focus on writing, with regular workshops and informal response papers in addition to more formal critical essays.

Texts (available in bookstore):
Shakespeare, King Lear (ed. Harbage)
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
Aeschylus, The Oresteia (trans. Lattimore)
Eugene O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra (in Three Plays)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
John Berger, Pig Earth
Joseph Williams, Style (5^th ed.)

We’ll also watch the following films:
Kurosawa Akira’s Ran & Seven Samurai, John Sturges’s Magnificent Seven, and Moussa Sene Absa’s Ça twiste à Popoguine.

Requirements: 10 response papers (10%), 4 formal papers (10%, 10%, 15%, 20%), mid-term (10%), final (10%), participation (15%) (You must pass each part to pass the class.)

Participation: This is a discussion class. Come to class prepared to discuss the readings. (To do this, of course, you must come to class: attendance is required).

All papers handed in to me or used for in-class workshops must be word-processed, double spaced, with normal margins and font. Response papers are opportunities for you to informally comment on any topic raised by the current readings or class discussion. They will not be graded individually, but you will get a grade at the end of the semester for the whole batch. They can be handed in anytime, but no more than one week after we’ve finished with the text or topic you’re commenting on. Drafts of formal papers will be due before the final draft is due. We will discuss these drafts in class workshops.

Exams (including surprise quizzes) will include both identifications and essays.

Plagiarism: Do your work, and do your own work. If you cheat, you fail. Period.

week of:

8/23 (W) Intro: What do we talk about when we talk about English?
(F) Virginia Woolf, "The Death of the Moth" (hand out)

8/30 (M) Shakespeare, King Lear, acts 1-2
(W) King Lear, act 3
(F) workshop, Style, ch. 2 (1st response paper due)

9/6 (M) Labor Day: no class
(W) King Lear, acts 4-5
(F) workshop, Style, ch. 3

9/13 (M) King Lear / Kurosawa Akira, Ran (movie)
(W) Ran
(F) Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres (--p. 128)

9/20 (M) A Thousand Acres (--p. 220)
(W) workshop, Style, ch. 4 (draft due)
(F) A Thousand Acres (--p. 274) (paper 1 due)

9/27 (M) A Thousand Acres (--p. 330)
(W) A Thousand Aces (--p. 371)
(F) workshop, Style, ch. 5

10/4 (M) Aeschylus, Oresteia (--p. 90)
(W) Oresteia (--p. 131)
(F) Oresteia (--p. 171)

10/11 (M) workshop, Style, ch. 6 (draft due)
(W) Oresteia (paper 2 due)
(F) mid-term

10/18 fall break: no class
(assignment: watch Seven Samurai & Magnificent Seven)

10/25 (M) Kurosawa, Seven Samurai (movie)
(W) John Sturges, Magnificent Seven (movie)
(F) Eugene O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra (The Homecoming)

11/1 (M) Mourning Becomes Electra (The Hunted)
(W) Mourning Becomes Electra (The Haunted)
(F) workshop, Style, ch. 7 (draft due)

11/8 (M) Mourning Becomes Electra (paper 3 due)
(W) Achebe, Things Fall Apart (--p. 62)
(F) Things Fall Apart (--p. 125)

11/15 (M) Things Fall Apart (--p. 169)
(W) Things Fall Apart (--p. 209)
(F) workshop, Style, ch. 8

11/22 (M) Moussa Sene Absa, Ça twiste à Popoguine (movie)
(W, F) Thanksgiving, no class

11/29 (M) John Berger, Pig Earth (--p. 65)
(W) Pig Earth (--p. 94)
(F) Pig Earth

12/6 (M) Pig Earth (--p. 176)
(W) workshop (draft due)
(F) no class

12/13 (M) wrap-up (paper 4 due)