ENG 300: Unsettling English Studies: Introduction to the Major

“Buy with a golden curl.” -Goblin Market (1862)

February 6: What’s Unsettling? Introduction to the major

Course Syllabus PDF (Word version with links here)

Canon, Genre, Period

Literary Devices (here and here)

Introduction to the English Major
What is literary criticism?
The specializations: Lit / CW / PW - New Majors Worksheets; Old Majors Worksheets
The Meridian (school newspaper); Obscura (literary and arts magazine); English Honors Program; HUM 470 (Humanities Internship)

Harryette Mullen, Dim Lady
Shakespeare, Sonnet 130

Letter to ENG 300 Students (here)

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HW: 1. Set up your www.dropbox.com account (downloading the app if you wish) and accept my folder invitation.
2. Read through the syllabus carefully on your own.
3. Read the “Letter to ENG 300 Students.” Write your Letter to the Professor (response and revision) and upload it to Dropbox as a PDF.
4. Review and study the literary devices we went over today in class. Your examples are group work are here.
5. Go shopping! Procure your commonplace book (notebook) to use throughout the semester.
6. Read through the Langston Hughes poem, Harryette Mullen poem, and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 for next week.

Optional: Skim/preview “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Heresy of Paraphrase”. Jot down some key words and ideas, explaining what you understand so far about each term.

February 13: Close reading & LIterary Devices

(Class Notes from lecture)

Review: Canon, Genre, Period

Lesson: Building Close Readings

Form and Content
*Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" (here)
Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase" (here)
The Heresy of Paraphrase 2: Hamlet as Facebook alerts
Complementary, or evoking tension? (The Temptations | lyrics)

How to write up a close reading (the step-by-step):
Group work: Write up a close reading of “Mother to Son”
Close reading example of Mullen’s “Dim Lady” (here)
Readings: Langston Hughes, “Mother to Son”
Harryette Mullen poem
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

Review: Study Guide for Literary Devices

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HW: 1. Study for the literary devices quiz to be held 2 weeks from now using our study guide here. 2. Go over lecture notes from Feb 13 (linked above) and write out notes to solidify your understanding of: Canon, Period, Genre; Close Reading, Form and Content; Intentional Fallacy, and the Heresy of Paraphrase. 3. Create two entries for your Commonplace Book, based on Hughes, Mullen, or Shakespeare. Copy any key terms or concepts you’d like to reinforce from class, too.

February 20: Canon Formation & Revising Literary History

Special Event: Devoney Looser on The Porter Sisters book talk at The Grolier Club. Please log onto our regular Zoom link to virtually attend this event. If you can join in person for a private tour of the club and Book Bindings exhibition, even better! (Arrive between 5:30-6 pm at 60th and Park Ave) Details here.

Grolier Club Field Report assignment (here) due next week.
Information on The Grolier Club (here) and (here)
Information on Devoney Looser (here) and (here)

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Homework: 1) Complete your Field Report on the Devoney Looser lecture (details above) and save it to Dropbox as a PDF. Read the articles linked above to help you. I have also linked the slides and recordings from the event just above. 2) Read Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants and Seamus Heaney’s Digging. Commonplace key passages in your notebook and practice some close reading points. 3) Watch this video on “His Name Was Belizaire” and write down some reflections on historical erasure and recovery, connecting it to this week’s guest lecture. If you need to create a NYTimes account, you can make a free one here. 4) Review the literary devices for our literary devices “quiz” next week.

February 27 : Historical Contexts, Historical Erasure, & Timelines Assignment

Discussion: Devoney Looser, “His Name Was Bélizaire” & Historical Erasure

Close Reading Practice:
Literary Devices “Quiz” | Answers here
Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
Seamus Heaney, “Digging”

Sample Close Readings:
Hemingway write-up
Digging notes | write-up

Historical Context: Timelines Assignment

HW: 1. Review the Close Readings we put together in class (now linked above). Do you feel confident enough to write one on your own? 2. Finish the Timelines Assignment (above) that we began in class. You may want to complete it with the help of an anthology of English literature, especially those made by Norton, Longman, Broadview, or Blackwell. 3. Skim through some of the “Commonplacing Sources” listed below in bullet points. Familiarize yourself with different modes of scholarly writing. (It can be dense!)

March 5: Commonplacing & Midterm Recitation Project

K-SAA Commonplacing Website (here)
Commonplacing lecture notes (here)

Midterm Recitation Project Assignment (here)
Recited Verse Platform (sign up here)

Critical editions of select poems:
Dorothy Wordsworth (here)
Felicia Hemans (here)
Leititia Elizabeth Landon (here)
Anna Letitia Barbauld (here)
Charlotte Smith (here)

Commonplacing Sources:

Jillian Hess, “Social Commonplacing,” from How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information (here)
Mai-lin Cheng, “Domestic Extracts” (here)
Deidre Lynch, from Loving Literature (here)
Deidre Lynch, “Paper Slips: Album, Archiving, Accident” (here)
Shelley AJ Jones, “Digital Experiments in Romantic-Era Commonplacing”. Any missing images from her article can be found here.

Historical Commonplace Books:

1805 Commonplace Book (here)
1834 Mary Burdoch Bland Liverpool Commonplace Book (here)
1551 Medical Commonplace book (here)
1892 American political commonplace book (here)
1723 Commonplace book (here)
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 1)
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 2)

Sample Recitations and Performances:

Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues” (1925)
1958 CBUT Live Performance of “The Weary Blues”
Eminem (orange) and parsing lyrics

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Homework: (1) Select your poem of choice and begin working on your Midterm Recitation project. (2) Photograph (or video) and upload your commonplace book entries thus far into Dropbox. As you do so, review our class discussion and lecture on commonplacing and think about new techniques or organization systems you might want to implement for the second half of your commonplace book. (3) Read or skim the Peter Barry chapters of the 3 theories we’ll discuss next week.

HW: 1) Write up a keyword paragraph for Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial criticism, respectively. You will use these in your final Anthology Project. 2) Start practicing your poem for the Midterm Recitation. Choose your poem and log it in here. 3) Read George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” (linked below under Postcolonial Theory)

March 19: THeory iV—postcolonial theory

(Class Notes from Lecture)

Read Barry, Chapter 10
Skim Rivkin and Ryan, “English Without Shadows”

Extra texts: essay by Madeline Sayet, “Interrogating the Shakespeare System”
Read Harryette Mullen, "European Folktale Variant" (here)
Read George Orwell, "Shooting an Elephant" (here)
Extra texts: Ngugi wa Thiongo, The Language of African Literature

Theory V — Critical Race Theory

(Class Notes from Lecture)

Read and take notes on Delgado and Stefancic’s Critical Race Theory: An Introduction

On your own: Conceptual Poetry & Every Single Word Spoken by a Person of Color versions of Lord of the Rings and Maleficent.

Theory VI - Disabilities Studies

(Class Notes from Lecture)
Read Lennard Davis, Construing Normalcy
Read Ben Mattlin, "Cure Me? No Thanks"
Skim Berger, Introducing Disability Studies

On your own: Mattlin article / Disabilities in Disney movies

Theory VII - Ecocriticism

(Class Notes from Lecture)
Read Barry, Chapter on Ecocriticsm
Read Rob Nixon, "Slow Violence"
Skim Cheryl Glotfelty, The Ecocriticism Reader introduction

Looking ahead: Anthology Project assigned (here)

Homework: 1) Choose 2 more theories and write a keyword summary for them using Barry’s keywords. 2) Practice your poem for the Midterm Recitation Project. Log in your poem choice here if you haven’t already. 3) Read Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market — use the book version (here) or web version (here). 4) Read Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell here (HW from last week).

March 19: Goblin market 3 ways

Class Lecture notes on Rossetti (here)

Class Discussion:

-Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market: Read and annotate the book version (here) or web version (here).
-We will take a 15-minute break at 7pm
-George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant (here)

HW: 1) Record and practice your poem for the Midterm Recitation Project. Think of ways to improve your recitation for next week. 2) Read “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville (here) 3. Please begin reading The Personal Librarian (Part 1) and (Part 2); pace yourself to read the bulk of the novel by April 2 for our class discussion. (You can finish it over spring break.)

April 2: Bartleby the Srivener 5 Ways

Lecture notes & links on recitation (here) Introduction to

Discussion on Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”
Group activity

Midterm Recitation Project due on April 16.
Assignment (here)
Recited Verse platform (sign up here)
Instructional video for using Recited Verse (watch here)
*Be sure to add a “Comment” under your poem with 2-3 lines of personal biography, written in the 3rd person.

HW: 1) Continue reading The Personal Librarian (novel) for discussion after the break. The text is linked under May 7. 2) Record and upload your Midterm Recitation recording. Start drafting your Recitation Write-up (3-4 paragraphs). Post your Recitation recording on Recited Verse by April 9. Submit your Recitation Write-Up by April 16. Be sure to add 2-3 lines of biography about yourself as a “Comment” after you post your poem. 3) Please refresh yourself on some of the material about Disabilities Studies from March 19 to fully appreciate next week’s guest lecture.

April 6-8: Friday-Sunday Optional Field Trip
NY International Antiquarian Book Fair (info here). Email Prof. Moy for your free ticket.
The Field Report write-up assignment (here). (You only need to complete one field report this semester; any more will be extra credit.)

*If you can’t attend any optional field trips this term, no worries. The virtual option for completing your Field Report is watching this special lecture instead and writing it up: “What New in the Goblin Marketplace?” Prof. Margaret Stetz, University of Delaware (here)

April 9: Lehman College Annual Disabilities Studies Lecture

Luis Machuca, English ’17

Please use this Zoom link for class to attend the guest lecture this week.

Next week we will go over the requirements for your Critical Essay (due May 22). If you’d like to take a look first, here is the assignment.

April 16: Crafting the English Essay / ANthology Project assigned

In class: Critical Essay assigned. / Anthology Assignment explained.

Critical Essay Assignment (here)
Anthology Assignment (here)

Resources:
Anatomy of a Five-Paragraph Essay
The Art of Quoting, from They Say, I Say by Graff and Birkenstein
Integrating Sources & Incorporating Quotes sample
Essay Grading Rubric

Grammar Help (from Purdue Owl online)

Sentence Fragments
Sentence Fragment Exercises

Run-On Sentences
Run-On Sentence Exercises

Comma Usage
Comma Usage Exercises

Subject Verb Agreement
Subject Verb Agreement Exercises

Capitalization

HW: (1) Review this week’s lesson on composing a critical essay. Start planning, outlining and drafting your final essay. (2) Read The Personal Librarian. (3) Sign up for your free NYTimes account and read the linked articles about Belle Da Costa Greene below (listed under May 7). (4) Upload your final Commonplace Book (at least 10 entries total).

Spring Break! No classes on April 23 or April 30.

Upload your full Commonplace Book to Dropbox as a video or images.
Read The Personal Librarian.

May 7: The Personal Librarian - Belle Da Costa Greene & The Morgan Library

Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian

The Personal Librarian (Part 1) and (Part 2)

Sign up for your free New York Times account (here)

“The Morgan Library and Miss Greene” NYT feature (here)
Library of Congress feature (here)
NYT obituary of Belle da Costa Greene (here)
Explore The Belle da Costa Greene Professional Papers at the Morgan LIbrary
Earliest known photograph at Amherst (here)
Codeswitch podcast with the authors of The Personal Librarian (here)

May 10: Morgan Library field trip!

Our optional Morgan Library Field Trip is on Friday, May 10. We will meet at The Morgan Library, 225 Madison Ave (btwn 36th and 37th Sts.) at 3 p.m. See you in the lobby!

May 14: conclusions: Commonplace Books & Anthology Projects

Discussion: How is a commonplace book different from an anthology? I will share examples of Anthology Projects.

In-Class Activity: Aspirational author bios

Sample professional bios: for Profs. Saidiya Hartman and Manu Samriti Chander
Try using www.canva.com if you’re interested in designing an attractive cover for your anthology.

HW: 1) Work vigorous only your Critical Essay & Anthology Project.
2) Take 10 minutes to organize your Dropbox folder and make sure all work is submitted, including the completed Commonplace Book.
3) Check your email and fill out the Course Evaluation before it expires! A link should have been sent to you from the Vice Provost.