All art is quite useless.

The primary text I’ve chosen to work with this quarter is Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, known outside of English departments as a disturbing image in the Art Institute of Chicago and an allusively metaphoric descriptor for everything from microbes to stock options. 

This blurb comes from the chapter “Monsters of Self-Destruction” in Barbara T. Gates’s Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories:

Like Tennyson's fictional Camelot, Wilde's portrait of fin de siècle England is of a land reeling back to the beasts, but with no hope for a second coming of a King Arthur to save it. The fantasy of Dorian Gray's portrait is not a Faustian story of a hero giving up life for knowledge, but a black fairy tale in which a spoiled boy gets his one wish — endless youthfulness and sensuality — and becomes a suicide because he cannot handle its implications. Wilde may have deserved the harsh criticism of his contemporaries, but like other Victorian creators of fictions and fantasies about monstrous selves who will to die, he discerned something deeply disturbing about his own culture. His Hallward, Dickens's Nell, Le Fanu's Jennings, Stevenson's Dr, Jekyll, and Tennyson's Balan all had "a little shadow that went along with them." That shadow was a dark, distorted other self, "a hideous hunchback," to use Matthew Arnold's paraphrase of Dr. Posey, "seated on [their] shoulders and which it was the main business of [their] lives to hate and oppose." (Arnold, 481) Often that subversive hunchback was beckoning them on toward death.

Alice

I think that I'll be using Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as my primary work for the quarter.

The blurb here is from Common Sense Media, a site that helps parents decide whether a book or show is appropriate for their children. Consequently, the review gives a super brief overview of the book's plot but also judges what age children, if any, should be reading it.

Don't Let Me Be Lonely

Hopefully I'm going about this in the right way, but I've decided to use Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely as my "primary work" for our class.  The book's subtitle reads: "An American Lyric."

Here's an article/review from BR on the book.  The reviewer has a hard time getting off the ground at first, but it gets better.

An excerpt from the book:

I don't usually talk to strangers, but it's four o'clock and I can't get a cab. I need a cab because I have packages, but it's four o'clock and all the cabs are off duty. They are making a shift change. At the bus stop I say, It's hard to get a cab now. The woman standing next to me glances over without turning her head. She faces the street where cab after cab drives by with it's lights off. She says, as if to anyone, It's hard to live now."

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The ENL200 syllabus is now on SmartSite as a pdf, and I've also reproduced it below.

Note: I still need to finish uploading all the readings, but they should be complete shortly. Except, that is, for the piece of manuscript we're going to read that is still being written. That's right: we'll be reading some brand new thought.

ENL 200 Fall 2013

Introduction to Graduate Studies in English 

M 3:10-6:00 120 Voorhies CRN 22565 

John Marx Office: 216 Voorhies

jmarx@ucdavis.edu Hours: M 1-3, by appt.

This seminar introduces Ph.D. students to graduate study in English A) by focusing on methods and methodological debates in literary study and B) by considering the state of “English” as an expert discipline. The aim of this course is to prepare new students for advanced work in the field and to orient them in the profession. We will do this by, for example, considering the close analysis of literary texts, examining how literary critics make their arguments, and asking about the status of the “literary” in the English department. You can expect to read, discuss, and write about works that exemplify and/or question important research methods and debates in literary studies.

Discussing and Writing

To succeed in this course, you will need to satisfactorily accomplish the following:

1. Read the assigned essays and participate in class discussion, which will be divided unevenly and unpredictably each week among A. rollicking discussion of the week’s reading, B. non-awkward discussion about the week’s writing, and C. exciting and informative chat with special guests.

2. Execute in adventurously expert fashion the class writing assignments, which in differing ways will require that you write weekly on the course blog (http://enl200f2013.blogspot.com). Some of your writing will be solo material that uses the scholarship we discuss on Mondays to say something smart and counter-intuitive about your self-selected primary work. Some of your writing will be collaborative, and you’ll just have to wait to hear about how that’s going to go. Throughout, your goal will be to put the scholarship we’re reading and your primary work in dialog. Do not think of one as explaining the other; allow both to argue, contest, debate. 

3. By Sunday (that is, the day before class) write a non-troll-like comment on (at least) TWO of the previous week’s posts by other people in the class. With any luck, you’ll find yourself wanting to do this anyway. In a perfect world, the blog for this class will be a lively and interesting venue that will make other grad students jealous. 

Required Readings: 

(All of these materials [which were recommended for you by the English Department faculty] are or will soon be available on the SmartSite session created for this course.)

Patterson, Lee. “Introduction.” Chaucer and the Subject of History. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1991. 3-46.

Dillon, Elizabeth Maddock. “The Secret History of the Early American Novel.” Novel 40.1-2 (2006): 77-103.

Best, Stephen. “On Failing to Make the Past Present.” MLQ 73.3 (2012): 453-74. 

Jameson, Fredric. “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. 1-54. 

Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Writing and Difference. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. 278-95.

Colebrook, Clare, “The Context of Humanism.” New Literary History. 42: 4 (2011): 701-18. 

Mbembe, Achille. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15.1 (2003): 11-40. 

Foucault, Michel. “The Mesh of Power.” Viewpoint Magazine 2012. http://viewpointmag.com/2012/09/12/the-mesh-of-power/

Moretti, Franco. “A Tale of Two Cities.” Atlas of the European Novel, 1800-1900. New York: Verso, 1998. 79-140.

Adam Smyth, “‘Shreds of holinesse’: George Herbert, Little Gidding, and Cutting Up Texts in Early Modern England.” English Literary Renaissance  42.3 (2012): 452-81. 

Schneider, Rebecca. “Forward - By way of other directions.” Performing Remains: Art and war in times of theatrical reenactment. New York: Routledge, 2011. 1-31. 

Anderson, Benedict. “Census, Map, Museum.” Imagined Communities. Rev. Ed. New York: Verso, 1983. 163-85.

Raley, Rita. “Datavalence and Countervalence.” Raw Data is an Oxymoron. Cambridge: MIT P, 2013. 121-46. 

Flusser, Vilém. “Line and Surface.” Writings. Ed. Andreas Ströhl. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2002. 21-34. 

Scholes, Robert. “The English Apparatus.” Textual Power. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985. 1-17. 

Liu, Alan. “The Meaning of the Digital Humanities.” PMLA 128.2 (2013): 409-23. 

Kates, Joshua. “Against the Period.” differences 25.2 (2012): 136-64. 

Kindley, Evan. “Big Criticism.” Critical Inquiry 38.4 (2011): 71-95.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography.” Selected Subaltern Studies. Ed Guha, Ranajit and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. 3-32.

Armstrong, Nancy. “Gender Must Be Defended.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 111.3 (2012): 529-47.

Milian, Claudia. “Introduction: The Copiousness of Latin.” Latining America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013. 1-24.  

Goyal, Yogita. "Of Lost Boys and Slaves Next Door: Modern Slavery and the Transnational Reinvention of Form.” Unpublished manuscript, 2013.

Chen, Mel. “Toxic Animacies, Inanimate Affections.” GLQ 17.2-3 (2011): 265-86.

Latour, Bruno. “Networks, Societies, Spheres.” Keynote. INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON NETWORK THEORY. 19th February 2010. Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Los Angeles. 1-18.

Spillers, Hortense. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics 17.2 (1987): 64-81.

Nealon, Christopher. “Affect, performativity, and actually existing poetry.” Textual Practice 25.2 (2011): 263–80.

Tompkins, Kyla Wazana. “‘She Made the Table a Snare to Them’: Sylvester Graham’s Imperial Dietetics.” Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the 19th Century. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 53-88. 

Justice, Steven. “Did the Middle Ages Believe in their Miracles?” Representations 103.1 (2008): 1-29. 

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Invisible Bullets.” 1981. Political Shakespeare. Eds. Dollimore, Jonathan, et al. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1985. 18-47.

Class Schedule:_________________________________________________________________________

Monday, September 30 Histories

Patterson, “Introduction” 

Dillon, “Secret History”

Best, “Failing”

Jameson, “Postmodernism”

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 7 October Theories

Derrida, “Structure, Sign, and Play”

Colebrook, “Context”

Mbembe, “Necropolitics”

Latour, ““Networks, Societies, Spheres”

Special Feature: How to do Humanities Research at UC Davis 

with Roberto Delgadillo and Daniel Goldstein, Humanities Librarians

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 14 October No Class

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 21 October Forms

Moretti, “A Tale of Two Cities”

Smyth, “‘Shreds’”

Nealon, “Affect, Performativity, Poetry”

Anderson, “Census, Map, Museum”

Special Feature: The UC Davis PhD in English and You

with John Marx, Grad Adviser

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 28 October Media

Raley, “Datavalence and Countervalence”

Flusser, “Line and Surface”  

Schneider, Forward

Scholes, “The English Apparatus”

Special Feature: English and Writing and Rhetoric

with Carl Whithaus, Director, University Writing Program

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 4 November Institutions

Liu, “Meaning of Digital Humanities”

Kates, “Against the Period”

Kindley, “Big Criticism”

Foucault, “The Mesh of Power”

Special Feature: The Humanities Institute (and maybe a bit of Alt Ac)

with Molly McCarthy, Associate Director, Davis Humanities Institute

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 11 November Veterans Day Holiday

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 18 November Populations

Spivak, “Subaltern Studies”

Armstrong, “Gender Must Be Defended”

Milian, “Introduction”

Goyal, “Modern Slavery” 

                                                                                    

Special Feature: I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now About Prelims and Quals

with recent survivors of the PhD exams

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 25 November Relationships

Chen, “Toxic Animacies”

Justice, “Middle Ages Miracles”

Spillers, “Mama’s Baby”

Tompkins, “Graham’s Dietetics”

Special Feature: I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now About THE MARKET

with the Job Placement Team, Gina Bloom and Colin Milburn

_________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 2 December

Special Feature: Your Future Revealed

_________________________________________________________________________________

Please get up to speed with the MOOC hype

If you're not yet, here's your update: http://pandodaily.com/2013/09/13/moocs-and-the-gartner-hype-cycle-a-very-slow-tsunami/

You're going to have to worry about this. Me too. I won't be retired in ten years.....

This is getting a good deal of play on the internets. What do you think? Helpful or intimidating? I guess those aren't mutually exclusive....

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/16/columbia-professor-raises-some-eyebrows-his-frank-approach-would-be-doctoral

Dear Students,

I started a blog roll (look to the right and you'll see it). I have reserved admin powers for myself, which I think means I'm the only one who can do things like add new academic blogs to said blog roll. BUT: you should send me links. Regardless of discipline, what academic blogs out there do you find interesting?

JM