Final Exam Questions

1. In what ways does French occupation interfere in the daily lives of the Algerians in "Naema--Whereabouts Unknown"?

2. Accoding to Robert Stam's and Louise Spence's essay on The Battle of Algiers, what are two film techniques that the film uses to make its audience identify with the FLN?

3. Write about any two themes Yukio Mishima addresses in his short story "Patriotism"?

4. In the short film Patriotism, how does the photography, costume, setting, and composition (write about two) contribute to the lyricism of the story?

5. In Kobo Abe's one-act play, "The Man Who Turned into a Stick," what are the causes of the man-stick's" unhappiness?

6. In "The Man Who Turned into a Stick," what are two symbols that a stick stands for?

7. According to the "Introduction" to magical realism, what might be the explanation to why magical realism prevailed in Latin America?

8. What is one characteristic of magical realism and how might it fit into one of the stories?

9. In Federico Garcia Lorca's play, "Blood Wedding," what is he criticizing by giving only one of his characters a real name?

10. How is suspense built in the film adaptation of Blood Wedding?

11. According to the essay "Ghosts of Comala," how does the novel criticize the Mexican Revolution and rapid urbanization?

12. Point out two changes in the film Pedro Paramo.

Pedro Paramo Film Response

Let's try something out of the ordinary here. Instead of writing and handing in a traditional essay, let's post our responses and get a conversation going. For 5 points credit, write a 100 word response to the topic, or to someone else's response. Write another 100 words in the form of a response to another comment to receive the other 5 points. If you've done all your film responses, you can do this for extra credit, too. Okay, so here we go...

There are some parts to Juan Rulfo's novel that is definitely cinematic, other parts not so much. Was this adaptation satisfying to you, or did it not do the novel justice? What did you or did you not like about the film?

Yosimar Reyes and For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly

For those of you who attend Yosimar's reading on Thursday, I'm wondering what your reactions were? Post your thoughts!

Patriotism

It was my first time teaching Yukio Mishima's "Patriotism" in class so I didn't know how that was going to turn out considering the intense subject of seppeku. You all took it with maturity, especially your reaction to the graphic nature of Mishima's short film. So is the story and film worth bringing in again in a future class?

Also, if you'd like further reading about the film and its production history, click here.

Themes and Meanings in "Patriotism"
Yukio Mishima was a writer who became obsessed by what he saw as the loss of Japanese traditional values, although he led a cosmopolitan and bizarre life. He used his writing success to fund a small private army, the Shield Society, to fight against Communism and support a prewar vision of the emperor as the soul of the Japanese nation. However, he was also an exhibitionist inspired by violence and homosexuality. Sexuality and violence are combined in “Patriotism,” in retrospect perhaps the most revealing of Mishima's works, because the author, like his protagonist Takeyama, committed seppuku.


On November 25, 1970, Mishima led a band of his private army to the headquarters of the Japanese Self Defense Forces, where he told the troops to show the “samurai spirit” to protect the “Imperial Way.” These prewar sentiments were derided by the soldiers, who saw Mishima as a crackpot. Mishima then showed his sincerity by withdrawing from the balcony on which he was speaking and disemboweling himself. The nation was shocked at this spectacular and strange death of one of Japan's most popular writers. It is difficult to consider his writing without reference to his suicide.


In “Patriotism,” written more than a decade earlier, one can see an early sign of Mishima's linking sex and death, or ecstasy and agony, in his version of the Takeyama suicide. The theme of this very tight story—the focus is on the suicide—is the honor and dedication of the lieutenant and his young and beautiful wife. They transcend the life-preserving spirit of most people to find peace in death. Their dedication to the nation and to the emperor is unsullied by selfishness: “The last moments of this heroic and dedicated couple were such as to make the gods themselves weep.”


Mishima wanted to restore what in his personal vision were the traditional values of Japan, values that were deeper than the materialism of the 1960's. Many contemporary Japanese intellectuals worry that Japan's rush to economic success has left behind any real values other than an increasing gross national product and electronic gadgets. Like Mishima, some seek answers in Japan's military past, while others look to religion to restore a sense of values that transcend materialism.


Suicide is a sin in the Christian view, and the Western reader is likely to be repelled by the act if not by the motives of Takeyama and his wife. In Japan, however, there is a long tradition of the “failed hero,” to quote Ivan Morris, in which admiration is given to the loser in a failed but just cause. In the feudal period, the losing hero could redeem himself by committing deliberately painful seppuku to show, quite literally, that he had guts. In Takeyama's case, he was ready to die rather than attack his comrades in revolt, who were supposedly acting in the name of the emperor, the nation, and the army.


Another theme is doing things in the proper way, even suicide. This becomes very clear as the couple prepare their bodies, home, clothes, and suicide notes in a ritualistic manner. The only new element that Mishima introduces into this tradition is the strong eroticism that describes the bodies and passion of Takeyama and his beautiful wife. Beauty and truth are seen as one, and pleasure and pain are integrated in this disturbing story.

Richard Rice. "Patriotism." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 1 Mar, 2009

Rock the Casbah!

I hope you enjoyed The Battle of Algiers as dark of a subject it may be. If you'd like to read an essay on it production history, click here. As I mentioned in class, some of you may be familiar with this track from The Clash: "Rock the Casbah." Check out this Wiki entry that tries to dissect how this song was inspired by the Casbah of Algiers. The song's not wholly political, but it's still interesting subject matter for being a hit single.

Peter Weir's The Last Wave

"The Last Wave" by Diane Jacobs

A sense of foreboding pervades an opening scene of Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, though the sun shines and young children play cricket as usual during recess at school. Then, suddenly, the wind picks up, dust rolls in like waves from the distance, and the children and their teacher race indoors, where bricks of hail pierce the windows and gouge their fragile skin. It is a classic horror image—only here the victims are not so much shocked as creepily fascinated. Destruction, seemingly unexpected, has answered their intimations of cataclysm and bliss.

From Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), where schoolgirls float off during an outing at Australian aboriginal sacred grounds, to The Truman Show (1998), where the hero braves death to escape the clichés of American television, all of Peter Weir’s films defy simple definitions of reality. But The Last Wave, Weir’s first film to be released in America, goes further—insisting on the tangible power of spiritual life.

The Last Wave involves a Chinese box of mysteries—from the sudden death of a healthy Australian aboriginal to the conundrum of a white Australian’s dreams. The plot line follows a Sydney corporate tax lawyer, David, who takes on a legal aid case involving a group of aboriginals accused of murdering a man outside their tribe. While the black men assure David that they are innocent, they refuse to divulge evidence that could save their lives. They fear something more terrifying than death, David figures, and he commits himself to discover what and why.

Peter Weir said he got the idea for The Last Wave when he asked himself, “What if someone with a very pragmatic approach to life experienced a premonition?” Fittingly, David’s preoccupation with the aboriginal murder is triggered by his own bad dreams. To understand his clients, he steeps himself in aboriginal history, then gets drawn to their tribal mysteries as well. Chris (Gulpilil), one of the defendants, becomes David’s spiritual guide, and the lawyer’s nightmares increasingly invade his waking hours as bathwater gushes off the landing of David’s staircase, and the skies shower soot on the windshield of his car.

Visually stunning from start to finish, The Last Wave exudes the excitement of the so-called “new Australian cinema,” which in the 1970s burst onto the international scene. Where the French New Wave auteurs had reacted against their predecessors, the films of Australia were practically suis generis—for a quarter century, Australian movie screens had been completely dominated by imported Hollywood (and sometimes British) product. Australians’ screen idols were John Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor; their movie landscapes were the streets of London and the American West. Then, in 1970, John Gorton’s government legislated an Australian film industry into existence: opening a state-financed film school and underwriting the early works of Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career), Fred Schepisi (The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith), Bruce Beresford (The Getting of Wisdom), and Phillip Noyce (Newsfront) as well as Peter Weir.

Along with these other gifted filmmakers, Weir set out to explore the nature of Australian identity. The Last Wave, like Schepisi’s The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, grapples specifically with the dilemma of a native black race ruled by immigrant whites. City aboriginals are “no different culturally than depressed whites,” a colleague flippantly informs David, but the thrust of the film suggests the opposite—that aboriginals possess a powerful separate and more spiritual identity that whites ignore at their own risk.

Many of the great pleasures of The Last Wave derive from its acting. Richard Chamberlain brings a febrile intensity to the emotionally confused David, while the gifted Gulpilil, playing Chris, David’s alter-ego, manages to convey fierce tribal loyalty while flirting with the logic of the white man’s world. Chris’s tribe leader, Charlie, is far more intractable. Played with disconcerting calm by the arresting Nandjiwarra Amagula (who was a tribe leader in real life), Charlie represents the spiritual leader as both a dignified artist and a merciless god.

In the film’s seductive conclusion, David follows Chris through a cavern filled with talismanic paintings, then confronts apocalypse in the form of a swelling sea. But the ending is admirably ambiguous. For while Weir’s hypnotic images inspire the predictable awe and terror, The Last Wave refuses to resolve either the political or the spiritual issues it so eloquently pursues.

Midterm Questions

Here are the midterm questions in advance. I suggest getting together in groups or partners in order to find the best possible answers. This is really a test against time contraints (20 minutes or 2 minutes per question) so I suggest that you practice jotting your answers under similar time retraints.

1. What are the characteristics of postcolonial literature?

2. Why isn't the literature of The United States considered post-colonial?

3. What are the two stages of development in postcolonial literature?

4. Use an example from any of the stories we covered in class that supports postcolonial theorist Elleke Boehmer's idea that "text, a vehicle of imperial authority...performed the act of taking possession" (14).

5. How is the theme of colonial encounter and its consequences played out in any one of the stories?

6. How is indigenous (mis)perceptions a theme in any of the stories we've read in class?

7. According to the documentary film Guns, Germs, and Steel, how is inequality accounted for in its various way among nations?

8. Why is social-realist sensibility a strong feature in 20th century Australian writing?

9. How is Red Ochre in "Clothes Make the Man" representative of the environmental harshness to the Australian settler?

10. What thematic conflicts arise between the Aboriginal world and white society in The Last Wave?

Week 5

We are entering the midterm here in week 5 of the course. On Tuesday we will conclude the first half of the course and postcolonial literature with the film The Last Wave by Australian filmmaker Peter Weir (The Truman Show, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World). We will watch the film in class and have a discussion afterward. The Last Wave will mark the first film you must write a response to. Your prompt will be:

How can postcolonial theory and themes from the stories read be applied to the film?

On Thursday we will begin the class with a 10-question midterm that will last for 20 minutes. Afterward we will go over "The Land of Sad Oranges" and hopefully cover "Naema--Whereabouts Unknown."

Looking ahead to week 6 we might end up splitting the viewing of The Battle of Algiers.

"Cargo": An essay by Andres Fierro

Here is Andres Fierro's essay. Take notice how he uses quotations to support what he is trying to convey. Also he cites the quotation with a simple page number and parentheses. But in the second paragraph, Andres has a dangling quotation--a no-no. All quotations should be attached to commentary. Lastly, there is no reason to always and always put quotation marks around the word cargo. Once is enough. Overall this is an appropriate essay.

Abram and Cain are determined to find the secret to obtaining “cargo.” They believe that power, wealth, and all the material things that their people want come directly from their ancestors, and that the church not only is blinding them from finding the "cargo," but their Reverend Father holds the secret to obtaining it. The two boys are committed to find all the answers to their wants, and devise a plan to discover the secret.

Bola is an adversary of Abram and Cain, and recently his brother had returned from a trip with some fascinating news. Cain explains to Abram that Bolaʼs brother finds itʼs, “... the holy water and the Bible that is keeping us blind” (435). This finding convinces the boys that the church is responsible for their problems with obtaining "cargo." Furthermore, the Reverend Fatherʼs outhouse was conspicuously placed between their ancestors graves and his house. “It was thought to be the passageway to the dead peopleʼs cargo beneath the graves" (439). Abram and Cain decide to perform a ritual, such as what they see in mass, to catch the Reverand Father as he is in the outhouse. They believe that the Reverend, while in the outhouse, will be, “... tricking their grandfathers. Then they would explain where the cargo really went” (439). Unfortunately for the boys, their plan is obstructed as Bola and Mickle show up just as they find the Reverend Father in the outhouse.

The fascination with obtaining “cargo” has driven Abram and Cain to search for the secret to finding it. With all the power and wealth that the church has, itʼs clear that they have built animosity towards the church, and have declared the Reverand Father as the culprit to crippling them from obtaining that “cargo” from their ancestors. Abram and Cainʼs plan places them on the battlefront against the antagonist of the story, the Reverand Father. It is he that is in a position of respect, power, and authority, but reading this as a fable on the loss of native culture, he is implicated as the burglar responsible for cheating the dead ancestors into giving him the “cargo” instead of to their rightful bearers.

As Abram and Cain have now become convinced that the church is responsible for impeding their ancestors "cargo” to reaching their hands, they blame the head of the church for the deceit on their grandfathers. The distribution of wealth is so one sided that those in power have not allowed for natives like Abram and Cain to enjoy the materialistic lifestyle that those in power lead. Thus, the envy that the boys have for those with a high status is fierce, turning their minds into planning out how to inform their ancestors about this treachery that the church and the Reverend Father are responsible for. As they find him in the outhouse they state, “When we think he is down the toilet we will follow him. We will then tell our kin why their cargo does not reach our hands” (439). They view the Reverend Father as a thief who is cheating them out of their “cargo.”

After all their efforts and plans have been spoiled, the boys are left still wanting answers to obtaining their “cargo”, hoping that they will find next time the Reverend Father in the act of lying to their ancestors. Do they really need this materialistic lifestyle? The church and Reverand Father have found a way to provide just enough to let them wanting more, and veering away from their native cultural ways.

Week 3

We will be covering more ground our third week than we have the previous two. For Tuesday have read the introduction to Ashcroft, et al's The Empire Writes Back. This intro will be about introducing you to some key concepts in understanding postcolonial lit theory. Come Tuesday you will be in groups breaking down these concepts. During the second half of class we will cover Colin Johnson's (aka Mudrooroo Nyoongah) selection from his novel Dr. Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World (1983).

On Thursday we will be covering two other pieces pertaining to the Aborigine: Katrine Susannah Prichard's "The Cooboo," which takes a look at the effect of colonialism on the female gender, and Xavier Herbert's "Clothes Make a Man" and it's look at hybridity.

Plan ahead as there may be up to three study question essay due by next Saturday. Looking into next week there will be more tweeking of the syllabus as class will be cancelled on Tuesday, February 3, yet we will have to take a midterm up to this point and watch our first feature-length film, The Last Wave.

An Introduction to Postcolonial Literature

The term “Postcolonialism” refers broadly to the ways in which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity itself are represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized. By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the control of European countries. At one time, Great Britain, for example, ruled almost 50 percent of the world. During the twentieth century, countries such as India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Canada, and Australia won independence from their European colonizers. The literature and art produced in these countries after independence has become the object of “Postcolonial Studies,” a term coined in and for academia, initially in British universities. This field gained prominence in the 1970s and has been developing ever since. Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said’s critique of Western representations of the Eastern culture in his 1978 book, Orientalism, is a seminal text for postcolonial studies and has spawned a host of theories on the subject. However, as the currency of the term “postcolonial” has gained wider use, its meaning has also expanded. Some consider the United States itself a postcolonial country because of its former status as a territory of Great Britain, but it is generally studied for its colonizing rather than its colonized attributes. In another vein, Canada and Australia, though former colonies of Britain, are often placed in a separate category because of their status as “settler” countries and because of their continuing loyalty to their colonizer. Some of the major voices and works of postcolonial literature include Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children (1981), Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart (1958), Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient (1992), Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place (1988), Isabelle Allende’s The House of the Spirits (1982), J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace (1990), Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1990), and Eavan Boland’s Outside History: Selected Poems, 1980–1990.

Source:
"Postcolonialism: Introduction." Literary Movements for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 25 January 2009. .

Shirley Geok-lin Lim on Kama Kerpi's "Cargo"

The entry of a different culture with its emphasis on economic exploitation and competition and material consumption resulted in profound changes in the native culture. Many indigenous people, influenced by Western values, ideas, and goods, became dissatisfied with traditional communal ways of living. Abram and Cain, two boarders in a mission school, exhibit the colonized perception of social justice at the inequitable distribution of wealth between native people and the colonizers. But the story also satirizes their ignorance and irrational resistance to colonial oppression through the low comic elements of the plot.

In using the symbol of cargo, the narrative is tapping anthropological material. To explain the sudden appearance of manufactured goods in their society, brought in by ship or air (cargo), some Papua New Guineans proposed that these objects were divinely delivered and created a cult of cargoworship relating these goods to presents from their ancestors. Abram and Cain's "mission," to discover how the colonizers, represented by the Reverend Father, have stolen cargo from their people, can be read as a form of resistance to the colonizing venture, carried out, in this case, by the Christian Church. Although their actions in tracking the Reverend Father's visit to the outhouse are seen by the more sophisticated reader as buffoonish and absurd, their motivations in seeking to redirect "the wealth flowing into the hands of the white Reverend Father" to their own people can be read on another level as a serious expression of the desire of dispossessed people to share in the world's plenty. Thus, the story's conclusion, with the pact between the four boys from enemy tribes, suggests the kind of political coalition that would finally succeed in gaining these native people their independence from European colonism.

Rosario Castellanos

Castellanos is best known for works that reveal and challenge social hierarchies and systematic discrimination in her native Mexico. Using a tone of ironic humor, with which she mocked social conventions, Castellanos employed historical and religious metaphors to illuminate a cultural tradition of oppression in which women and native people are deprived of individual freedom. Personal concerns with solitude, depression, and mortality also recur throughout her works. She is recognized as a forerunner of Mexican feminism and a predecessor to many contemporary feminist literary critics.

Biographical Information

Born in Mexico City, Castellanos was raised in Comitán, Chiapas, Mexico. Shunned by her parents in favor of her brother, Castellanos witnessed her brother's suicide and became a solitary child who retreated into literature. After her family's estate was appropriated by the Mexican government in the 1941 land reform plan, Castellanos began her studies in the College of Philosophy and Letters at the National University of Mexico in 1944. While at the university, she joined an international group of Hispanic writers known as the Generation of 1950. Following her parents' deaths in 1948, Castellanos published her first long poem, “Trayectoria del polvo,” on the subject of death. In 1950 she received her master's degree in philosophy and, subsequently, served as the cultural program director of Chiapas. In 1957 she married a university professor and gave birth to their son, Gabriel. Castellanos then worked as the information director of the National University of Mexico from 1960 to 1966. She traveled to the United States in 1967 as a visiting professor of Latin American literature at the universities of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Colorado, and chaired the Comparative Literature Department at the National University of Mexico upon her return home. By then divorced, in 1971 she was named ambassador to Israel by President Luis Echeverría. While in Israel she taught Mexican literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and continued to write poetry, short stories, essays, and a play—all of which dealt with women's issues. Castellanos died accidentally of electrocution in 1974. Her body was returned to Mexico City, where she received a state funeral. Castellanos was buried in the Rotunda de los Hombres Illustros, a tomb reserved for Mexico's most respected leaders and heroes.

Major Works of Short Fiction

Castellanos became aware of gross social and political inequities while growing up as a member of Mexico's wealthy land-owning class. On her parents' sugar and coffee plantation, she witnessed widespread and officially sanctioned discrimination against the native people who lived in and around Chiapas. As a woman in a male-dominated society, Castellanos was also faced with widespread misogyny. Consequently, injustices against women and minorities were the primary focus of her writings, including her three short story collections: Ciudad Real (1960; City of Kings), Los convidados de agosto (1964; Guests in August) and Album de familia (1971; Family Album). A related issue for Castellanos was language and the ways in which it is used to oppress and manipulate those outside the power structure. Many of Castellanos's stories feature characters who are kept outside of the mainstream by their lack of communication skills, or who simply do not speak the language of the dominant group. Critics have noted a distinct evolution in Castellanos's short fiction: the stories in City of Kings are set largely in the rural Mexican countryside, those in Guests in August in provincial towns, and in Family Album most of the stories take place in an urban Mexican setting. Additionally, critics have commented on Castellanos's increasing use of humor, frequently ironic, in her later stories, with characters—usually women—quietly but comically subverting the patriarchal status quo using whatever means are available to them in their proscribed domains.

Critical Reception

Castellanos received international attention for her literary works. Some scholars note the importance of her difficult early life in fostering her writing career and formulating her literary themes. Others remark that her adept use of humor throughout her works helps to present more effectively the sensitive issues surrounding women's lives and the exploitation of Indians in Mexico. Several commentators have asserted that her commanding use of language deftly leads her readers towards an understanding of how language itself is the key to determining the social stature of people within Mexican society.

"Castellanos, Rosario (Vol. 67): Introduction." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Joseph Palmisano Project Editor. Vol. 67. Gale Cengage, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 23 Jan, 2009

Alejandra Rincon

What did you guys think of Alejandra Rincon's talk today?

Grading Option B

Grading Option B: The Long Research Paper

You may choose a different option to determine your grade in this course. This option is an intensive 15-page paper that requires reading another book on top of the other class reading, plus hours of research and planning. This is a graduate school-level assignment. If you choose this assignment you are not held to complete the study question assignments, film responses, or examinations, but you must still read the assigned readings and attend class. You have until the end of Week 2 to choose this option, but once you choose this option, you cannot go back to the first and will be held to the following timeline:

By Thursday, January 22 (Week 2)—Inform me that you have officially selected Grading Option B.

Thursday, January 29 (Week 3)—Topic Proposal (10 points)—submit a 125-250 word topic proposal stating your thesis and describing what you intend to argue.

Thursday, February 5 (Week 4)—Annotated bibliography (20 points)—submit an annotated bibliography with at least 5 critical sources you will use to back up your thesis. For more information on how to write an annotated bibliography please see the reference librarian Heather Schwappach at the library.

Thursday, February 12 (Week 5)—Detailed Outlined (30 points)—A 2-3 page outline detailing your paper’s argument and evidence. Be sure to include your central idea and your evidence to each of your arguable points.

Thursday, February 26 (Week 7)—First Draft (40 points)—A full draft of your paper so I may make comments for guidance, improvements, and revisions. This includes a meeting with me.

Thursday, March 19 (Week 10)—Final Draft (100 points).

NOTE: Some of you have expressed interest completing both option A and B. You should dedicate yourself to Option B and make sure you meet all the deadlines. If you successfully complete Option B and A, your grade will increase significantly. But if you don’t successfully complete Option B, any work, partial or completed, from Option A will only slightly benefit your grade.

Book List
Here’s a list of recommended books for this assignment. You may choose another book from this list pending my approval.

Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe. Africa, novel
Aké: The Years of Childhood (1989) by Wole Soyinka. African, memoir.
Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton. South Africa, novel.
Selected Poems (2007) by Derek Walcott. St. Lucia, poetry.
Omeros (1990) by Derek Walcott. St. Lucia, poetry.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Columbia, novel.
The Book of Lamentation (1962) by Rosario Castellanos. Mexico, novel.
The Underdogs (1925) by Mariano Azuela. Mexico, novel.
The English Patient (1990) by Michael Ondaatje. Sri Lanka, novel.
Midnight's Children (1981) by Salmon Rusdie. India, novel.
The Wretched of the Earth (1961) by Frantz Fanon. Martinique, novel.
A Small Place (1988) by Jamaica Kincaid. Antigua, novel.
The House of the Spirits (1982) by Isabel Allende. Chile, novel.
Disgrace (1990) by J.M. Coetzee. South Africa, novel.
Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990 by Eavon Boland.

Week Two

There will be a change in the syllabus this week as I did not plan for the inaugeration of our new President. Since this is a historical event of large proportion we will be watching the presidential inauguration from 8am-10am in room 302-304 in lieu of regular class. I will still be taking roll call so please make it to class.

The syllabus will be moved up a day and other changes will be made in order to catch up. Read Rosario Castellanos' "The Death of the Tiger" before coming to class on Thursday (1/22), when we'll watch the second part of Guns, Germs, and Steel entitled "Conquest." In "Conquest" we learn how steel and guns quickly conquered the Incan nation effortlessly despite the conquistadores being outnumbered 100 to 1 thus changing the course of the future.

For Tuesday of Week 3 we'll get into more of the post-colonial theory that should ground us in what we're looking at in class. The reading for Tuesday (1/27) will be the Introduction (pg. 1-11) from the book, The Empire Writes Back by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. You can find this book on Google Books by Googling "The Empire Writes Back." This is a preview book so it skips every other page. I just received my copy of the book from Amazon so I can provide those missing pages in a timely manner. Also as a way to catch up, please have read "Dr. Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World" for that day.

The homework due for Week 2 by Jan 24 by 11:59PM will be a response to the study questions to "Death of the Tiger."

Angina Pectoris by Nazim Hikmet

Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) is one of my favorite poets and influential in my own work.

He is considered Turkey's national poet. Hikmet, a prolific writer, was also a communist

and when he was caught with communist pamphlets in his army locker he was jailed

for 12 years until the government was pressured by intellectuals to free him. Hikmet's

work is very imagistic and proletariot.



Nazim Hikmet



Angina Pectoris





If half my heart is here, doctor,

      the other half is in China

with the army flowing

     toward the Yellow River.

And, every morning, doctor,

every morning at sunrise my heart

     is shot in Greece.

And every night, doctor,

when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,

my heart stops at a run-down old house

                                       in Istanbul.

And then after ten years

all I have to offer my poor people

is this apple in my hand, doctor,

one red apple:

               my heart.

And that, doctor, that is the reason

for this angina pectoris--

not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.

I look at the night through the bars,

and despite the weight on my chest

my heart still beats with the most distant stars.



(1948)



Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

Welcome to English 301: Introduction to World Literature

Students. What's up? I've set up this blog for our class. I will use it to post any related material to this course such as critical essays, poems, photos, extra credit, and especially your writing assignments. Yes, everyone will have at least one of their homework responses posted to this blog. You may also leave comments but please note that those comments are moderated.

I'm always excited about teaching this class. I've taught it four times before, the first being in spring module II 2005. The readings are tough and are probably not like anything you've read before, but trust me--they are good reads! These stories have been carefully selected over the years according to their popularity with my former students. Another exciting part of this course are the films. You will be watching and discussing the adaptations of many of our stories. These films, too, will be unlike anything you've watched before and are classics in world cinema in of themselves.

This is a paperless course which means I want to use the minimal amount of paper. First things first, please activate your student e-mail account as that will be the only e-mail I will correspond with. You can activate your account on the first floor.

This is all experimental, but let's just roll with it. I hope you enjoy the class.

Prof. Espinoza