link to
writing center

This course will introduce several distinct but related issues that are integral to the way we moderns think about the world. We’ll be looking at how one tells a story about a person, and at how that has evolved from the late seventeenth century to the twentieth. The focus of the first half of the course is on autobiography (though we’re starting with a novel), and in the second half we’ll shift to novels (though there’s an autobiographical essay as well). Throughout the course, we’ll be considering various strategies of representation (such as style, form, selection of defining details) and how different choices influence our views of the subjects. What makes a person a person? How does the way one presents oneself, or is presented, change the way we think about her or him? How do different forms of writing frame and shape a person? Related to these issues will be another set that focuses on the "background" or "world" or "context" in which the person is presented: How do place and history frame questions about the person? Issues of culture, race, migration, and relations between power and powerlessness interact with questions about the self and writing to make the modern world, and in this class we’ll be looking at some of the ways these complex equations have be made, and then questioned, and then reworked. And we’ll be, of course, asking what still works and what still needs to be reworked for ourselves.

Texts (available in bookstore):
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (ed. Lipking)
Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative (ed. Sollers)
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (ed. Aaron)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life (ed. Baker)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (ed. Watts)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
(plus a few handouts)

Requirements: participation: 15%, response papers: 15%, short papers: 50%, midterm: 10%; final: 10% (You must pass each part to pass the class.)

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

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

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. If you are sick or unable to attend class, you must contact me before class to say you won’t be there. Three unexcused absences will lower your grade).

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 3 levels:
     First: Reading journal. For each class, please prepare a brief "impressions" entry in a running journal. This should consist of—but is not limited to—your first response to the reading assignments. It could include reactions to the material or extensions of the ideas presented, how they relate to other things you’ve read (in this class or others), or other things you’ve seen ("hey, that’s just like last week’s Buffy!"), heard, or imagined. This is your free form forum: whatever you want to do is fine (within legal limits). It does need, however, to be honestly engaged with the material: "I didn’t like it because I was too lazy to try," for instance, won’t cut it. Saying why you didn’t like it, on the other hand, would.
     Second: Every Wednesday an informal response paper (one page) will be due. This is an opportunity for you to develop a single idea more fully than in your journal. You may write about anything that we’ve covered in class that week, either in the readings or in discussions. Again, critical engagement, not mechanical regurgitation, is the goal here. Response papers are not due on weeks when formal papers are due.
     Third, there will be 4 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 reading journal or your response papers). For each paper we’ll have an editing workshop the class before it’s due.
     All papers handed in to me or used for in-class workshops must be word-processed, double spaced, with normal margins and font.

Gender-neutral language: It is the norm in professional writing of all sorts to avoid gender-biased language, and that standard is in force in this class as well. In the interests of both good writing and clear thinking, avoid thoughtlessly sexist language.

I encourage you to use the Writing Center (in Old Falvey), where extremely helpful and specially trained fellow students are available to help you edit papers (the same skills we’ll be working on in our editing workshops).

Office of Learning Support Services: It is the policy of Villanova to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and wish to request accommodations to complete your course requirements, please make an appointment with me (and your other professors) as soon as possible to discuss the request. If you would like information on documentation requirements, contact the Office of Learning Support Services at 610.519.5636 or visit the Office in Geraghty Hall.

week of:

1/14
(M) introduction
(W) Behn (-- p 41)

1/21
(M) Behn (-- p 80)
(W) Equiano (-- ch 4, p 55)

1/28
(M) Equiano (-- ch 9, p 134)
"translation" exercise and paper assignment
(W) Equiano (-- ch 12, p 178)

2/4
(M) Equiano
     paper 1 due
(W) Franklin (-- p 68)

2/11
(M) Franklin (-- p 90)
(W) Franklin (-- p 125)

2/18
(M) Douglass (-- ch 2, p 58; incl. Preface & letter)
     Quest Workshop: meet in Falvey Library
     Philadelphia Orchestra Philadelphia, 7 pm
(W) Douglass (-- ch 8, p 94)
paper 2 assignment

2/25
(M) Douglass (-- appendix, p 159)
(W) mid-term
     paper 2 due

3/4
(M-F) spring break: no class

3/11
(M) Conrad (-- ch 1, 135-78)
(W) Conrad (-- ch 2, 179-215)
(F) Conrad (-- ch 3, 216-52)

3/18
(M) T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" (handout), Apocalypse Now
(W) Tim O’Brien, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" (handout)
paper 3 assignment
editing worksheet

3/25
(M) individual conferences: no class (paper 3 draft)
(W) W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" (handout)
     paper 3 due

4/1
M Easter Break: no class
W ASECS: no class

4/8
(M) Achebe (-- ch 13, p 125)
paper 4 assignment
(W) Achebe (--ch 19, p 167)

4/15
(M) Achebe (-- ch 25, p 209)
     workshop (paper 4 draft due)
(W) Achebe
     paper 4 due

4/22
(M) Woolf (-- ch 1, p 24)
(W) Woolf (-- ch 3, p 57)

4/29
M Woolf (ch 6, 95-114)
W wrap-up