Annie Dillard & "fleshy" narrative

Annie Dillard on postmodern fiction:
“[Postmodern] fiction, in fact, requires more coherence than traditional fiction does. For one of the things this new fiction does is bare its own structure.… This fiction sees that the formal relationship among parts is the essential value of all works of art. So it strips the narration of inessentials….It bares instead its structural bones, brings them to the surface, and retires. Those bones had better be good….Traditional fiction has the advantage here, I think. In a conservative work well fleshed, we may not notice at once that the joints do not articulate, nor the limbs even meet the torso. There may in fact be so much flesh that the parts cohere as it were bonelessly. But it is easy to see, if we look, taped joints on a skeleton.” (34, Living by Fiction)

Questions to Consider:

• What does Dillard mean when she says that postmodern novels “bare [their] own structure” like bones?
• Why makes “traditional fiction” fleshy?
• How can we apply this body metaphor (flesh, bones, limbs, torso) to Invisible Cities?
  

Placing Othello

While much of Othello takes place on the island of Cyprus, the play opens in and is colored by the city of Venice. As we've discussed in class (via Invisible Cities, Venice served as a gateway between East and West on the Mediterranean. Its streets and buildings showed signs of influence from a variety of cultures, religions, and regions. In the image above, you'll see evidence on this in the domes and arches of St. Mark's Cathedral.

For Paper 1, you are welcome to write on Othello. In what ways does place or setting produce meaning in the play? What ideas do you have about how you might incorporate our discussions of Othello into your assignment? into our broader conversations on the importance of place, space, and location in forming identity?

Othello Reading Guide

Reading Tips:

• As you make your way through Othello, don't forget to jot down summary notes to remind yourself what happened in each scene and Act. When you go to reflect on what you've read, these notes will be hugely helpful to you.
  
• Also, highlight or bracket passages & speeches that you find really interesting, even if you don't fully understand them. Read and reread these sections. Maybe you can ask your roommate or classmate to read a couple lines or scene with you out loud. Hearing things aloud sometimes helps.
• Underline patterns of language, images, or words you notice over and over (honesty, black/white, honor, see/sight...). This way you can identify those areas quickly later on. You might also keep note cards with you as you read so you can write down some of these thoughts and reactions and store them in your book.

Other Resources:

• Feel free to consult a few online summaries from the British Library , Cummings Study Guides, or even Spark Notes.
• Check out Terry A. Gray's outstanding web resource, Mr. Shakespeare and the Internet.
• Some HUST majors recently read Othello, and they took some notes online that you might find useful. Check out their historical analysis and summaries.
  
• Don't forget to consult your book. Kim Hall's introduction to the Bedford/St. Martin's edition of your text is very useful, especially for its explanation of how race is understood in Shakespeare's time.
  

Questions to Think About:

• What are Iago's reasons for plotting against Othello?
• After Cassio gets drunk and fights Montano (2.3), he laments the loss of his reputation (2.3.240). Why is reputation so important to Cassio? How essential is it for the other characters?
  
• Why do Iago, Othello, Branbantio and other characters keep talking about what you can see? Othello claims he needs "ocular proof" of Desdemona's faithfulness--what are limitations does "ocular proof" present? Can we always trust what we see?

Calvino reading guide

As you make your way through Calvino's cities, you might find the following questions helpful as a kind of reading guide. I would highly recommend pausing after each city to reflect on what you've just read, what impressions you have, and what still confuses you (the kind of delicious-hurt-your-brain-in-the-best-sort-of-way confusion).

GUIDING QUESTIONS:

• For each city, we might ask: What vision is this? How is this city known to Polo and to you/the reader? What impressions are you left with? Do any cities resemble each other?
• What are the relationships between the different categories/sections/chapters in the book? Are there any?
• What is the relationship between the conversation that Marco Polo has with Kublai Kahn and the cities we read about?
• What is the function of the journey for Marco Polo? for Kublai Kahn? for the reader?
• Do you notice any patterns emerging? (I'm thinking of things like seeing/invisibility, the past/memory, dreams/imagining, etc.)

Historical context - "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Published in 1892, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" predates Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own by over 35 years, and, unlike Woolf's British text, takes place in America. What historical, national and cultural conditions might help us understand the broader context that Gilman was living and writing in?
To help you explore answers to some of these questions, I've posted a few resources below.

• "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'": Here you'll find Gilman's own response to the "elephant in the room" question, especially given her own personal experience at the hand of mental health "professionals" like S. Weir Mitchell (mentioned in the story).
  
• What's going on in art? For a sense of how women are being represented in late 19th-century American art, check out The University of Virginia's American Culture pages on this very topic. You'll have to scroll down to the bottom to get to links to other related topics like women & domesticity, women in literature, etc.
• What is a "nervous disorder" anyway? At the turn of the 20th century, a condition called neurasthenia was determined to be the root cause to many cases of anxiety and depression, especially in the U.S. and especially for women. The actual medical validity behind such cases, however, was often suspect, creating instead what some have called a "culture of neurasthenia" in which women were often portrayed in nervous, weakened states. Women said to suffer from such conditions were many times prescribed rest cures or periods of severely restricted activity: no reading, no exercise, no sewing, reduced diet, strict bed rest, etc. The American Journal of Psychiatry has a helpful article, "The Rest Cure Revisited," explaining the history behind the supposed "cure" and the physician responsible for its use, S. Weir Mitchell (the same doctor Gilman references in her story, one she was herself treated by).
• Where was the story originally published and what did it look like? For links to images of the original pages from The New England Magazine, see Cornell's Making of America website. The image you see above was included in the initial publication.
  

Girl, Interrupted - Discussion Questions

Here are a few questions for you to consider as you reflect on Girl, Interrupted.

• What does it mean to be a girl, interrupted? Why not an interrupted girl? Why a girl?
• Why is “ambivalent” the perfect word for Susanna?
• One of the women says at one point that it’s a good thing the place works on a sliding scale so that the “locking picking trash” is also admitted. What other class tensions did you notice? Why might these be significant?
• What did you make of Susanna’s final definition of crazy: “you or me amplified”?
• How does the film affect your reading of "The Yellow Wallpaper" or vice versa?

Also, you might find it interesting to note that Claymore is modeled after Harvard's McLean Hospital, a mental health facility largely known by fame of some of its patients including writers and musicians.

Extra Credit: Talk

Susan Douglas is speaking on Wednesday, September 16, at 7:30 p.m. in the Little Theatre, located in the Moreau Center for the Arts. Her talk, supported by the Ann Plamondon Endowed Lecture Series, is titled "Fantasies of Girl Power: How the Media Make Feminism Seem Unnecessary and Sexism Fun."

Douglas is the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan and is also chair of the department. She is author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Undermines Women (2004); Listening in: Radio and the American Imagination (1999), earning her the Hacker Prize in 2000 for the best popular book about technology and culture; Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (1995); and Inventing American broadcasting, 1899 - 1922 (1987). Her column "Back Talk" appears in In These Times every month. She has appeared on the "Today Show," the Oprah Winfrey Show," Working Woman," CNBC's "Equal Time," NPR's "Fresh Air," Weekend Edition," "The Diane Rehm Show," "Talk of the Nation," and various radio talk shows around the country.

A reception and book signing will follow her talk.

Extra Credit: Art Gallery exhibit

Now open at the Moreau Art Galleries in the Moreau Center for the Arts:

“Talking in Place”…a solo exhibition by Tia Factor in Sister Rosaire Gallery. Featuring works on paper that function as imagined cartographies of landscape and architecture.

Exhibitions run from August 24-September 25, 2009. Join us for the Artist’s Reception on Friday, September 11 from 5-7pm!

"How to write a good comment" from Grammar Girl

Since many of you may choose to attend an "extra credit" event (like the film screening on 9/21) and follow-up by commenting on the blog, I wanted to offer some suggestions and guidelines about how to post an effective, useful comment. For this task, I've outsourced to "Grammar Girl"--a website created and hosted by Mignon Fogarty to provide "short, friendly tips to improve your writing." This site is a great resource in general, but the post that I'd like to highlight is on how to write a great comment. Please take a look, and use her tips as a guide for creating the perfect comment. Her reminder to "make a point," for example, is especially important for you all. Avoid summarizing the event or merely stating an opinion. Decide what it is you'd actually like to say before you hit "comment."

Extra Credit: Film screening 9/21

"Pray the Devil Back to Hell"
Monday September 21st, 6 pm
Vander Vennet Theater, Student Center
Professor Edith Miguda from the History Department will introduce the film and lead a discussion following the screening.

Synopsis:
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war. The women's historic yet unsung achievement finds voice in a narrative that intersperses contemporary interviews, archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia together to recount the experiences and memories of the women who were instrumental in bringing lasting peace to their country. A Film by Abigail E. Disney and Gini Reticker (USA, 2008, 72 minutes)

www.PraytheDevilBacktoHell.com

This event is sponsored by CWIL, Justice Education, Campus Ministry, and Intercultural Studies.

Required Film Viewing

There will be two viewings for Girl, Interrupted before our discussion on Thursday (9/16).

1. Sunday (9/13) from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at the Vander Vennett Theater (downstairs in Student Center).
   
2. Monday (9/14) from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at the Vander Vennett Theater (downstairs in Student Center).
   

Reading Questions - A Room of One's Own

Use the following questions as (optional) guides for reading and reflecting on A Room of One's Own.

Chapters 1-2:

• Is this a work of nonfiction or fiction? (16)
• Why does Woolf say that her text can be written by anyone....any "Mary"?
• What does the narrator discover in the various places she visits: the lawn at "Oxbridge," the dining facilities, the British Museum?
  
• What is the take-away message at the end of Chapter 2? What must women have in order to write?

Chapters 3-4:

• Who is Judith Shakespeare, and why is she so significant to Woolf's argument?
• What do you learn about the history of women writers in Chapters 3 and 4?
• What does Woolf seem to suggest about the importance of rooms? What sorts of rooms does she discuss?
• At the conclusion of Chapter 3, Woolf addresses the college women in her "audience," remarking that they have "got [them]selves to college and enjoy sitting rooms--or is it bed-sitting rooms--of [their] own" (56). As women in college, what are your reactions to Woolf's ideas about the importance of having rooms of your own? What are your own relationships to your dorm rooms, bedrooms, or campus study rooms? What effect do these spaces have on your mind?