FSLT Proposal for ENGL 240, Literature after 9/11 Monika Siebert Department of English

Transcription

1 FSLT Proposal for ENGL 240, Literature after 9/11 Monika Siebert Department of English Proposed field of study Literary study Course number and title ENGL 240 How this course fulfills the purpose of the field of study, as defined by the General Education Curriculum Literature After 9/11 focuses on comparative textual analysis of a series of imaginative works written in response to 9/11, including poems, short stories, plays, novels, and essays. These works are considered in the historical context of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent international response. Catalog description A study of selected works of imaginative literature written in response to September 11, 2001, including poetry, drama, short stories, novels and essays by writers from across the world. Focuses on the functions of art in mediating trauma in highly politicized historical contexts. Course prerequisite(s) None Full description of the course The early responses of American writers to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 converged in their despair at the failure of language to describe what transpired that day. I have nothing to say, wrote Toni Morrison, while Suheir Hammad found that there have been no words./ no poetry in the ashes south of canal street./

2 2 no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna./ not one word. Like the European writers in the wake of World War II, who declared that there could be no poetry after Auschwitz, many American writers saw 9/11 as an event that made language itself useless and literature irrelevant, if not impossible. Their international counterparts concurred: in 2002 Salman Rushdie confessed to struggling, like every writer in the world trying to find a way of writing after September 11 and Martin Amis claimed that after a couple of hours at their desks on September 12, 2001, all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change of occupation. And yet, in the years since, imaginative fiction attempting to grasp the meanings of September 11, and of the changed world it ushered, proliferated both in the United States and abroad. We will study this body of writing to understand how writers in the United States and abroad have variously responded to the challenge of depicting 9/11 and confronting the crisis of literary imagination that followed. We will read American and British drama, such as Neil LaBute s The Mercy Seat and David Hare s Stuff Happens, American fiction such as Jonathan Safran Foer s Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close, Don DeLillo s Falling Man, Deborah Eisenberg s The Twilight of the Superheroes, Lynne Schwartz s The Writing on the Wall, Laird Hunt s The Exquisite, Colson Whitehead s Zone One, and Amy Waldman s The Submission along with works by British, French, Algerian, and Pakistani writers such as Frederic Beigbeder s Windows on the World, Martin Amis s The Last Days of Muhammad Atta, Mohsin Hamid s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Slimane Benaïssa s The Last Night of a Damned Soul and a selection of nonfictional commentary by intellectuals from around the world. Proposed syllabus Attached Reading list Neil LaBute, The Mercy Seat David Hare, Stuff Happens Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes

3 3 Lynne Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall Don DeLillo, Falling Man Frederic Beigbeder, Windows on the World Laird Hunt, The Exquisite Jonathan Safran Foer, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close Slimane Benaissa, The Last Night of a Damned Soul Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist Amy Waldman, The Submission Colson Whitehead, Zone One Toni Morrison, The Dead of September 11 Suheir Hammad, First Writing Since Don DeLillo, In the Ruins of the Future Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real Martin Amis, The Last Days of Muhammad Atta Statement of course objectives Literature After 9/11 offers a sharp thematic focus while encouraging students to reflect on how a major historical trauma affects our imaginative resources and reshapes how we think about the functions of creative fiction. It allows students to consider how cultural mediation of a historical trauma changes over time and to study how the popular and critical discourses evoked by subsequent anniversaries differ from those surrounding the original event. The course offers a unique opportunity to reflect on how the students, themselves, and how others, including intellectuals from around the world, think about the defining historical event of their generation and to do so by paying attention to literature in the context of a variety of different contemporary media, such as film, television, visual arts, and internet media. Full details of how the course will be taught Literature After 9/11 opens with a consideration of the earliest literary and critical responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including poetry by Toni Morrison and Suheir Hamad, and critical essays by Don DeLillo and Slavoj Zizek. Next we study two plays, a political drama by a British playwright reconstructing the

4 4 period leading up to the declaration of the U.S. led war on terror and a play by an American author focusing on personal responses to the attacks of two New Yorkers to consider the relationship between the genre and the ideological implications of literature. Two short stories, again by a British (Martin Amis) and an American (Deborah Eisenberg) writer, follow suit, this time showcasing the repercussion of experimentation with narrative voice. The rest of the course focuses on the novel, featuring works by American (DeLillo, Schwartz, Foer, Laird, Whitehead, Waldman), French (Beigbeder), Moroccan (Benaissa), and Pakistani (Hamid) writers, and ranging from realist depictions of the event, to far reaching narrative experimentation aimed at representing the unimaginable of the event, to allegorical treatment of the 9/11 fallout, and to questions of public commemoration of 9/11. Throughout we pay particular attention to the question of language and representation in the context of historical trauma, the potential functions of art in mediating trauma, and to the ideological functions of artistic expression in highly politicized historical contexts. Alongside literature, we study photography (the controversy over the Falling Man photograph and its censoring in public media), experimental video (Alejandro Inarritu s September 11), visual art (September 11 exhibition at the MOMA on the occasion of the 10 th anniversary of the attacks), and architecture and public art (The National 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan) to consider what is uniquely specific about literary attempts at representing 9/11. Number of units One unit Typical estimated enrollment Twenty students per section How often and by whom the course will be offered Monika Siebert, once every two years

5 5 Staffing implications for the school/department/unit None; the course has been taught twice since the Fall 2011 semester as a special topics course; and it has always been enrolled to capacity, often with a waiting list. Adequacy of library, technology and other resources No new materials or resources needed Any interdepartmental and interschool implications The course will be cross-listed with the American Studies program. Contact person Monika Siebert msiebert@richmond.edu SYLLABUS ENGL 299 (3 & 5): Literature After 9/11 TTh 3:00-4:15pm (section 3) Ryland 204 TTh 4:30-5:45pm (section 5) Ryland 204 Monika Siebert msiebert@richmond.edu Phone: office: 303-K Ryland office hours: Tuesdays 2-3pm, Wednesdays 6-7pm, and by appointment There is a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of a culture. Now bomb- makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. - - Don DeLillo Artworks, unlike terrorists, change nothing.

6 6 - - Salman Rushdie. The early responses of American writers to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 converged in their despair at the failure of language to describe what transpired that day. I have nothing to say, wrote Toni Morrison, while Suheir Hammad found that there have been no words./ no poetry in the ashes south of canal street./ no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna./ not one word. Like the European writers in the wake of World War II, who declared that there could be no poetry after Auschwitz, many American writers saw 9/11 as an event that made language itself useless and literature irrelevant, if not impossible. Their international counterparts concurred: in 2002 Salman Rushdie confessed to struggling, like every writer in the world trying to find a way of writing after September 11 and Martin Amis claimed that after a couple of hours at their desks on September 12, 2001, all the writers on earth were reluctantly considering a change of occupation. And yet, in the twelve years since, imaginative fiction attempting to grasp the meanings of September 11, and of the changed world it ushered, proliferated both in the United States and abroad. We will study this body of writing to understand how writers in the United States and abroad have variously responded to the challenge of depicting 9/11 and confronting the crisis of literary imagination that followed. We will read American and British drama, such as Neil LaBute s The Mercy Seat and David Hare s Stuff Happens, American fiction such as Jonathan Safran Foer s Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close, Don DeLillo s Falling Man, Deborah Eisenberg s The Twilight of the Superheroes, Lynne Schwartz s The Writing on the Wall, Laird Hunt s The Exquisite, Colson Whitehead s Zone One, and Amy Waldman s The Submission along with works by British, French, Algerian, and Pakistani writers such as Frederic Beigbeder s Windows on the World, Martin Amis s The Last Days of Muhammad Atta, Mohsin Hamid s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Slimane Benaïssa s The Last Night of a Damned Soul and a selection of non-fictional commentary by intellectuals from around the world. Required texts: Neil LaBute, The Mercy Seat David Hare, Stuff Happens Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes Lynne Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall Don DeLillo, Falling Man Frederic Beigbeder, Windows on the World Laird Hunt, The Exquisite Jonathan Safran Foer, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close Slimane Benaissa, The Last Night of a Damned Soul Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist Amy Waldman, The Submission Colson Whitehead, Zone One All required texts are on sale in the University of Richmond Bookstore.

7 7 Course requirements: Attendance, preparation and participation. Our course is conceived as a seminar: its success depends, in largest measure, on your ACTIVE participation in class discussions. Your classmates and I are looking forward to learning with and from you. We expect you to come to class having read and thought about assigned materials and EAGER to share your reflections with us. Your absence from class, your lack of preparation, and your silence while in class, compromise everybody s learning. I expect you to come to the course and materials it invites you to consider with interest and enthusiasm. I also expect you to attend all class meetings and to come on time, every time, and to always have your texts with you. If the texts we are studying any particular day are available on blackboard, please print them out and bring annotated hard copies to class with you. Papers. You will write two formal papers (4-6pp and 6-8pp) in this class, one half way through and the other at the end of the semester. Both papers must be legibly printed and conform to the MLA documentation and formatting style. Exam. This will be a take home exam and it will take place just before the Thanksgiving break. For the exam, you will read Colson Whitehead s Zone One on your own and respond in a 3 page paper to an exam question. To pass the class you need to meet ALL the requirements outlined above. Other than roughly 50% for preparation for and participation in class discussions, I do not assign percentages to each paper/quiz/exam and so on. Rather, I evaluate total performance and reward generously for evidenced progress. If you require special disability accommodations to meet the requirements of this course, please meet with me as soon as possible so that we can make appropriate arrangements. I expect all students to steadfastly adhere to the Honors Code pledge. The Honor Code Statutes recognize, among others, the following violations: cheating, plagiarism, lying, and academic theft. If you have any questions about any of these violations, please see honor- code.html and

8 8 plagiarism.html To be successful in this course, you should expect to devote an average of hours each week to preparing for class, participating in class sessions, studying course related materials, and completing course assignments. Office hours: My office hours this semester will be on Tuesdays from 2pm until 3pm and on Wednesdays from 6pm until 7pm in 303-K Ryland Hall. Should you be unable to come during the regular office hours, I will be glad to make appointments for other times. Communication: Please get in the habit of consulting the course blackboard frequently the day before each class meeting would be optimal. Posted on the blackboard you will find all the current information about the course, including the syllabus, assignments, changes to reading or class meeting schedule. With questions that have no answer on the blackboard, you can reach me at msiebert@richmond.edu. I check my mail frequently and respond promptly.

9 9 Schedule of classes: Week One: 8/27-8/29 (T) Toni Morrison, The Dead of September 11 Suheir Hammad, First Writing Since (Th) Don DeLillo, In the Ruins of the Future Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real Week Two: 9/3-9/5 (T) Neil LaBute, The Mercy Seat (Th) David Hare, Stuff Happens Week Three: 9/10-9/12 (T) Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes (Th) Martin Amis, The Last Days of Muhammad Atta Week Four: 9/17-9/19 Lynne Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall Week Five: 9/24-9/26 Don DeLillo, Falling Man Week Six: 10/1-10/3 (T) Falling Man (Th) Frederic Beigbeder, Windows on the World, pages Week Seven: 10/8-10/10 Windows on the World First paper due by Friday, October 11, 5pm, hard copy in my departmental mailbox. Week Eight: 10/15-10/17 (T) Fall break, no class (Th) Jonathan Safran Foer, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close Week Nine: 10/22-10/24 Jonathan Safran Foer, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close Week Ten: 10/29-10/31 Slimane Benaissa, The Last Night of a Damned Soul Week Eleven: 11/5-11/7 (T) The Last Night of a Damned Soul (Th) Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist

10 10 Week Twelve: 11/12-11/14 (T) Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Th) Lair Hunt, The Exquisite Week Thirteen: 11/19-11/21 (T) Laird Hunt, The Exquisite (Th) Colson Whitehead, Zone One Week Fourteen: 11/26 Thanksgiving break, no classes. The essay on Zone One due no later than Tuesday, November 26 th, 5pm, a digital copy in the form of a Microsoft Word attachment ed to msiebert@richmond.edu. Early submissions welcome, starting Saturday, November 23, and will be returned very promptly. Week Fifteen: /5 Amy Waldman, The Submission Final paper due no later than December 13, 12noon, a digital copy in the form of a Microsoft Word attachment ed to msiebert@richmond.edu. Early submissions welcome and will be returned promptly.