Assignments

Assignments:

1. Galleries: Working in pairs, each of you will be responsible for generating a gallery of webpages or a 3-5 page print packet to serve as an initial overview of a segment of our reading. After discussing the materials involved and the field they represent with your collaborator, prepare 1) a short overview of the topic including relevant historical events, aesthetic issues, and ethical crises; 2) a brief summary of writers and critics involved; 3) a short annotated bibliography of crucial materials; 4) a set of sample statements or quotations. The goal of this assignment is pedagogical: think of yourself as introducing a unit in a class you are teaching. The challenges here are: How effectively and imaginatively can you present these materials to your classmates? What resources will they need to deepen and/or expand their grasp of the issues involved? On the day your gallery is due, I will ask you to prepare a short (5 minute) presentation of it for the class.
   
   
2. Imitations: Because these materials tend to enact rather than represent their meanings, imitation is frequently the best way to come to terms with them. Thus, at several points in the term, you'll be asked to compose an imitation and a short passage of process you went through in creating your imitation.
   
   
3. Response to critical essays:
   
   a. oral response: In the course of the semester, each of you will be responsible for introducing one of the assigned critical readings. Since everyone in the class will have read the essay, your task will not be to summarize its content but to give a succinct (1-3 sentence) summation of its central thesis and to formulate a series of questions about its argument, theoretical assumptions, and/or critical methodology.
   
   b. written response: In addition to reading the critical essays assigned for the class, each of you will be assigned one additional supplemental essay on the topic of your choice. You will write a one-page response to that essay, summarizing and evaluating its argument, and distribute copies of your response to the class on the assigned day.
   
   
4. Research Assignment: This assignment will give you practice doing primary research to generate, focus, and enrich a paper topic, help prepare your conference prospectus, and write the final conference paper. After selecting an aspect of alternative poetics that interests you and meshes with your ongoing research, this assignment asks you to find and engage primary and secondary sources (e.g., critical and theoretical materials, book chapters, interviews, manifestos, works of visual art, material artifacts, contemporary news accounts, etc.) relating to your topic. Once you have generated a research archive:
   
   
   • create an annotated bibliography of 8 to 10 of the crucial sources that are engaged in the critical conversation you want to join. In addition to giving the author, title, place of publication and date, compose a brief description of each text, noting its purpose, argument, audience, and distinguishing features.
   • write a 3-to-5 page summary of the critical conversation around this topic and the most interesting or exciting discoveries you have made in the course of your research.
   • formulate a series of questions (aim for 5-7) about your topic based on your research and looking forward to your prospectus.

   Due: April 3rd.

5. Conference Paper Prospectus (due April 15th)

6. Conference Paper: Drawing on your work throughout the semester, you will write a paper of approximately 10-15 pages that would be suitable for presentation at MMLA, MLA, Modernist Studies Association, or the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900. A more detailed description of this assignment will follow. Due: May 6.

7. Conference: During exam week, we will hold a conference of our own for ourselves and any interested others with panels, introductions, responses, discussion, and, not least, refreshments.