ENGLISH 12: LITERATURE & MEDIA THEORY
ANATOMY OF THE M(A)SSAGE • At the beginning of each class, following a prompt or Koan, we will write freely about said topic. On a final note, remember that you have won the war and that there is no battle here. The only thing you have to do is read the material, participate, and be generous with your ideas, energy, creativity, and experiences. Have an open mind and respect the challenges of this course. Your grade is derived from a complex system of variables, composed of the following: Attendance, behavior, class work + quality of work, participation + quality of giving, homework + sharing, binder (must be organized), essays + exams. Numerical Evaluation % of final grade. Important Rules: • Obtaining Selfhood: Selfless + Selfish = Selfhood
Social theorists examine the effects of media and pop culture on our behavior. For example, they look at the number of hours we spend in front of our TVs, computers, ipods or Playstations and see what patterns of behavior arise as a result of this consumption. They analyze the systems of belief that are created by massndash;marketing campaigns, ubiquitous ad placements, unbridled news coverage, and disasterndash;porn footage. Indeed, the goal of this course, Eng 12: Literature and Media Literacy, is to present helpful tools with which we can begin unraveling the ideological meanings of said visual and literary communication. Many of the tools we will use come from the field of cultural semiotics, which is the study of signndash;systems employed in space and time to produce texts. And, like intellectuallyndash;agile semioticians, we will analyze the psychological patterns and directionality that underlie language and art, particularly those imbedded in American culture.
Let me be clear: we must consider ourselves reading machines. Everything has become a text and the task is to read it all. For example, when venturing the aisles of Duane Reade or Costco, recognize that we are swimming in a narrative of brands, logos, images, ideologies, and icons. How dazzling is the packaging? Are these commodities reflections of ourselves? Reflections of our desires? You might find yourself asking, quot;How do I deal with all this stuff?quot; or quot;How do I make sense of it all?quot; or quot;Where is the Cream of Wheat?quot;
Our journey begins, therefore, with the belief that reading and writing is a conscious form of selfndash;discovery; that the acts of decoding and encoding allow us access to the world around us, however fleetingly. This class unabashedly examines our cultural logic, tackling literature, movies, art, architecture, and music in the process. Here is a sampling of questions with which we will actively wrestle: How do we know what we think we know? What is an quot;imaginedquot; community? What is an omnitopia? Are we in this Starbucks or the one down the street? Can we have quot;unmediated experiences?quot; Do the agents know they are agents? How do we step into the quot;meta?quot; Is there a connection between ideology and technology? What is a postmodern moment? Do we have a choice in all this?
Literature and Media Literacy is an intellectually rigorous and stimulating course. Prepare to engage in myriad bouts of cognitive Jiundash;Jitsu while balancing ideas of atomization, disconnection, meaninglessness, selfhood, and survival in the media glut. I hope you leave this class with more questions than answers. I am sure you will. Be prepared to think, work hard, have fun, and be good.
SEMESTER LITERATURE
‘Poetry of Departuresrdquo; – poem by Philip Larkin (1954)
‘Seeing the Cowrdquo; – picture from Buddhism Plain and Simple (1999)
‘Why Did the Chicken Cross the Roadrdquo; – Internet spam
‘Homeless Man Interviews Himself ‘ Harperrsquo;s article by Mr. Bliss (2001)
Civilization and Its Discontents – (excerpts) by Sigmund Freud (1930)
The Stranger – novel by Albert Camus (1942 Vintage Int.)
The King of Hearts – film directed by de Broca (1966)
‘Allegory of the Caverdquo; – excerpt from The Republic by Plato (427ndash;347 B.C)
On Loftiness and the Sublime: Aristotle (335 BC), Longinus (c. 213ndash;273 AD), E. Burke (1756)
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (excerpts) Sturken, Cartwright (2001)
Brave New World – novel by Aldous Huxley (1932)
Simulacra Discussion: from Plato to Baudrillard
Player Piano – novel by Kurt Vonnegut (1952)
The Naked City – film directed by Jules Dassin (1948)
Dark City – film directed by Alex Proya (1998)
‘Small Worldrdquo;: Alex Proyasrsquo; Dark City and Omnitopia – article by Andrew F. Wood (2008)
‘A Rhetoric of Ubiquity: Terminal Space as Omnitopiardquo; – article by Andrew Wood (2003)
Virtual Tour of NYCrsquo;s Modern and Postmodern Architecture:
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/att/index.htm
‘Blade Runner – film by Ridley Scott (1982)
‘What Happens [in Vegas]rsquo;rsquo;:Performing the Postndash;Tourist Flaneur in ‘‘New Yorkrsquo;rsquo; and ‘‘Parisrsquo; – article by Andrew F. Wood (2005)
Dr. Strangelove – film by Stanley Kubrick (1964)
Society of the Spectacle (excerpts) – Guy De Bord (1967)
Media Burn – video by Ant Farm (July 4, 1975)
The Medium is the Message – (excerpts) by Marshall McLuhan (1967)
‘Learning to Love the Blobrdquo; – chapter from Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita (2005)
A Pair of Boots – painting by Van Gogh (1887); ‘Diamond Dust Shoesrdquo; by Warhol (1981)
Miss Lonelyhearts – novel by Nathaniel West (1939)
Day of the Locusts – novel by Nathaniel West (1933)
White Noise – novel by Don Delillo (1985)
‘Madrigalsrdquo; – music by Monteverdi (1590)
Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock – video clips
Kiss: Live in Concert – video from the Kissology Collection (1974ndash;1977)
‘Modern Loverdquo;– song by David Bowie (1983) ‘Material Girlrdquo; – song by Madonna (1984)
Stop Making Sense – music video by The Talking Heads (1985)
U2: Zoo TV Live from Sydney – music video (1994)
The Big Lebowski – film by the Coen Brothers (1998)
SUPPLEMENTAL READING:
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs – novel by Chuck Klosterman (2003)
Kiss of the Spider Woman – novel by Manuel Puig (1979)
Kiss of the Spider Woman – film by Babenco (1985)
Blood Meridian – novel by Cormac McCarthy (1985)
Amusing Ourselves to Death – (excerpts) by Neil Postman (1985)
The Saturated Self – Kenneth J. Gergen (1991)
Buckminster Fuller Works / Ideas (1895ndash;1983)
‘Virtual Selves and Communitiesrdquo; – Kenneth J. Gergen (1991)
Lonely Are the Brave – film by Philip H. Lathrop (1962)
Killiing Yourself to Live – novel by Chuck Klosterman (2006)
City of Glass – book by Paul Auster (1985)
CLASS LOGISTICS AND GOALS
• You are expected to bring to class an independent novel of your choosing. At least once per semester, you will deliver a brief synopsis of the book to the class.
• We will periodically examine a work of art in class. Each student will prepare a short presentation on a chosen piece of art before the semester’s end.
• We will routinely examine a music group or solo artist and show how they contributed to the field. Each student will give a presentation about an artist at least once.
• Postcard Art - We'll be democratizing art for each novel read (Details tba).
• You are responsible for 1 research paper, aka the Context Paper (Details tba).
• We will be working on grammar, punctuation, and usage throughout the semester.
• We will performing close analysis of literature each class, focusing on context, intention, direction, and rhetorical effectiveness.
• You will have homework every night.
• Participation and Presence in the Community of Learning [Giving] 25%
• Homework [Competency, Effort, Quality of Work] 25%
• Essays / Exams [Diligence, Intellectual Agility] 50%
• Always take notes on the materials you read.
• Always bring the readings to class.
• Do not throw materials or handouts away. Keep everything tidy and organized.
• Opposition: 1’s and 0’s and steps towards transcendence of the dual response: binary opposition, duality, juxtaposition, polar opposites, polar extremes, dichotomy, paradox.
• Setting up the &‘Aha” moment: A Buddhist exercise in seeing.
• Semiotics: Ways of reading a text and directionality. Deconstruction.
• Fractal Geometry: Considering &‘part to whole” relationships.
• What is &‘IT”?: A paradigm + linguistic analysis. Two houses, fire, and electricity. Transmuting culture.
• Plato’s Forms: Dazzle, The Chair + Platonic Image
• Sublimity: Form, Beauty, Truth, Nature. Aristotle, Longinus, Burke. Great thoughts, diction, terror and pity.
• How do you know what you think you know?: Are all truths the same?
• Plato’s tryptic: Mind (Clergy), Heart (Knights), Stomach (Peasants); Freud Superego, Ego, Id
• The Myth of Sisyphus: Suicide, Goodness, the Nature of men.
• Freud’s tryptic: Id, ego, superego.
• Milan Kundera and Litost: The child is father to the man.
• Agency: Do the Agents Know They Are Agents? Charles Bronson & Telefon.
• Modernism = a narrative
• Postmodernism and language issues (a Marxist angle) = Baseball: Umps and Players. &‘It Is what I Sayz It Is.”
• Postmodernism = Art that’s for sale that knows it's art. Pastiche of ideas / forms. Prince / Levine’s pictures of picture.
• Postmodernism = questioning authenticity and authorship.
• Postmodernism = Jameson’s the logic of late capitalism. Guy DeBord’s &‘everything is for sale.”
• Postmodernism = Shallowness, mediation, fragmentation, discontinuity.
• Sendero’s Anarchist Rally in 1968 in Berkeley: Common denominators and playing fields.
• Marx: Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis
• Frankfurt School = The marriage of Freud’s Psychoanalytics and Marxism
• Simulacra and the Mediated World: Reality T.V.; catching a rattlesnake; performing brain surgery, non-real realities, hyper-real realities. The copy may be more important than the original. There. Indeed, may not be an original.
• The Carol Burnett Story: &‘I’ve been in their living rooms for 12 years.”
• Dubos: Animal and Editor. Keeping the frontal lobe together. DJ Manimal.