click here to return to homepage

office hours: MW 3:00-4:30 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 from a range of different literary and cultural traditions—Renaissance England, contemporary America, Japan, European modernism, Nigeria—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 both 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 and a research paper.

Texts (available in bookstore):
Shakespeare, King Lear (ed. Mowat)
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
Tanizaki Junichiro, Some Prefer Nettles
Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Ben Okri, The Famished Road

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

This class is writing intensive.

Requirements: response papers (10%), 2 short papers (15%, 20%), longer paper (25%), 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).

Writing: Because writing well is an integral component of reading well, there will be regular and frequent writing assignments in this class. These will be divided into four levels or stages:
     First, for each class please prepare a prep paragraph, which should consist of a brief comment or question about the day’s reading. Sometimes a passage or theme will be assigned and sometimes you will choose your own. These will be presented orally in class or shown to me.
     Second, each week an informal response paper will be due. These are on topics of your own choosing, responses to the week’s readings or class discussions. They may further elaborate on your prep paragraphs or be on something completely different. Each Friday, a couple of people will share their responses with the class—and each of you should volunteer to share a response at least twice during the semester.
     Third, there will be 2 short formal essays (3-5 pages) on topics assigned by me (although you will always have the option of proposing an alternative topic, which could start from either your prep paragraphs or your response papers). Drafts of these will be due the class before the final paper is due. These classes will be workshops in which we will practice editing skills on each other’s paper.
     Fourth, there will be one longer paper (8-10 pages) involving some independent work. This will be on a topic developed by you in consultation with me, and should involve some research into either the context (historical or literary) of one of the readings or the criticism on it, or further reading in one of the authors. This will involve five stages: proposal, bibliography, outline, draft, and final paper.
     All papers handed in to me or used for in-class workshops must be word-processed, double spaced, with normal margins and font.

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:

1/10 (M) introduction
(W) Woolf, "The Death of the Moth" (handout)
(F) King Lear, Act 1

1/17 (M) King Lear, Acts 2-3
(W) King Lear, Act 4-5
(F) workshop

1/24 (M) Ran
(W) A Thousand Acres (--p. 128)
(F) A Thousand Acres

1/31 (M) A Thousand Acres (--p. 274)
(W) workshop / draft due
(F) A Thousand Acres (--p. 371) / paper 1 due

2/7 (M) Seven Samurai
(W) Magnificent Seven
(F) Japanese poetry (handout)
Japanese film site
Kurosawa site 1
Kurosawa site 2

2/14 (M) Some Prefer Nettles (--p. 109)
(W) Some Prefer Nettles (--p. 150)
(F) Some Prefer Nettles (--p. 202)
Tanizaki site
Japanese literature site
Japanese literature webring

2/21 (M) Kitchen (--p. 43)
(W) Kitchen (--p. 105)
(F) Tampopo / midterm

2/28 spring break

3/6 (M) Mrs. Dalloway (--p. 194)
(W) Mrs. Dalloway
(F) workshop
map of Mrs. Dalloway's London

3/13 (M) The Hours (--p. 62)
(W) The Hours (--p. 139)
(F) The Hours (--p. 172)

3/20 (M) workshop / draft due
(W) The Hours (--p. 226) / paper 2 due
(F) The Hours

3/27 (M) Things Fall Apart (--p. 62)
(W) Things Fall Apart
(F) Things Fall Apart (--p. 125)

4/3 (M) Things Fall Apart (--p. 209) / proposal due
(W) library workshop (meet in Falvey)
(F) Ça twiste à Popoguine

4/10 (M) The Famished Road (--p. 71)
(W) The Famished Road / bibliography due
(F) The Famished Road (--p. 183)

4/17 (M) The Famished Road (--p. 265) / outline due
(W) The Famished Road
(F) Easter break: no class

4/24 (M) Easter break: no class
(W) wrap-up / paper 3 due