Syllabus

English 229: Contemporary Urban Writers

Monday/Wednesday 12:30pm-1:45pm, Carman324, Section02W

Instructor: Miriam Atkin, Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of English

Office hours: Monday/Wednesday 2pm-3:30pm, 392 Carman

miriam.atkin@gmail.com

Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! Drench with your splendor me,

or the men and women generations after me!

Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!

—Walt Whitman

In 1856, Walt Whitman wrote the above lines describing his experience on the ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Whitman’s poetic vision of the dizzying assortment of human beings that constituted life in mid-19^th century New York was a crucial early expression of one person’s response to the rise of the contemporary global city. Whitman’s account of the “countless crowds of passengers” from all ends of the earth crossing the East River points to the non-stop confrontation with foreignness into which any contemporary city-dweller is forced. This course will assess the way that 21^st century writers have addressed the problem of getting along with others in an urban environment fundamentally characterized by immeasurable diversity. With the rise of the digital age, this diversity not only includes real-life, physical encounters with foreign people and foreign cultural practices, but the constant influx, via advertising and social networking, of virtual information from around the globe; the connectivity that Whitman explored in his poems has now taken on a new meaning. Beginning with some key early texts, we will study the literature of New York City from the 1960s onward, focusing on work from various movements such as the New York School, Black Arts and the Nuyorican Poets. We will treat the stylistic particularities of each of these groups, and of specific members within these groups, as indicative of the struggle for identity as an individual—or struggle against it—that is prompted by the disorienting conditions of the new global city.

Course Blog:

Find the course blog at the following address:

http://lehmancollegecontemporaryurbanwriters.blogspot.com/

This blog will serve as the main location for information about the class. We will not use Blackboard. I will post reading assignments to the blog twice a week. To see your reading assignments, click the “announcements” link in the menu on the right. Do not look at the syllabus for your reading assignments because the list on the syllabus is subject to change.

Texts:

Works of fiction by Samuel Delany, Phaswane Mpe, Lyn Di Iorio, Paul Auster, Tao Lin and others. Poetry by Anne Waldman, Joe Brainard, Alice Notley, Edwin Torres, David Henderson, William S. Burroughs, K. Silem Mohammed and others. Critical texts by Jane Jacobs, Philippe Bourgois, Amiri Baraka, Andy Warhol and others.

Students are required to purchase the following texts online:

Welcome to Our Hillbrow by Phaswane Mpe

Outside the Bones by Lyn Di Iorio

Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin

Ghosts by Paul Auster

All other texts will be available through the course blog as downloadable PDFs at the following URL: http://lehmancollegecontemporaryurbanwriters.blogspot.com/p/readings.html

Course Goals:

• To arrive at unique critical analyses—via blog entries, class discussion and formal papers—of various works of contemporary urban fiction and poetry.
•  To read closely and respond to critical texts that address the cultural products of urban life and consider the various philosophical and socioeconomic consequences of the massive redistribution of people from country to city in the 20^th century.
• To compose various works of writing which demonstrate each student’s unique critical reading of assigned texts as well as a mastery of Standard English grammar and MLA formatting conventions

Course Objectives: 

• compose a well-constructed essay that develops a clearly defined claim of interpretation which is supported by close textual reading.
• employ effective rhetorical strategies in order to persuasively present ideas and perspectives.
• utilize literary terminology, critical methods, and various lenses of interpretation in her/his writing.
•  demonstrate knowledge of the historical context of a work or author
• choose an appropriate critical approach through which to analyze a given text.
• integrate primary and secondary sources into her/his writing.
• employ methods of active reading, including annotating, summarizing, questioning and synthesizing.
• utilize current technologies to assist in the research and presentation of critical and creative writing.

Course Requirements

• reading response blog posts (25%)
• attendance and participation (25%)
• one 10-12 page paper + 4 page rough draft (35%)
• in-class presentation (15%)

Reading Response Blog Posts: In order to receive full homework credit each week you must post one reading response + one comment. Your contribution to the class blog is a very important element of this course and your grade.  There will be a set of readings due at every class meeting and regular, informal blog post assignments due once a week, which serve to demonstrate that you’ve read the material. ALSO, you are required to comment on one blog post per week. Comments must be carefully thought out and at least 3 sentences long.

            You can choose to write your post for either Monday’s or Wednesday’s class, depending on your reading preference. Any multimedia elements that you’d like to add to your posts—images, video clips, or audio clips that pertain to your topic—are highly encouraged. Though the blog entries are informal, you are required to spell-check and proofread your work before posting. Blog responses must be 350-450 words in length and include the following elements:

• a close reading of at least one phrase, sentence, or paragraph from the assigned text
• discussion of an author’s style or voice
• an investigation of the relation between the various texts assigned for that day (if there is more than one)

If you do not consistently follow the above format in your posts, your overall reading response grade will be lowered. Blog assignments and comment must be posted no later than 8pm on the day before the class session. After two late blog posts or comments, your grade will be lowered. Any blog response or comment posted after the readings have already been discussed will not be graded and will be considered a missed assignment. After one missed blog post or one missed comment, your grade will be lowered.  If you don’t keep up with the homework, it will significantly affect your grade.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR POSTING YOUR READING RESPONSES:

1. click on the "Posts" link on your dashboard
2. write your response
3. click on "Labels" in the menu to the right
4. write "Reading Response" plus the date using the dd/mm format (for example: "Reading Response 11/07")
5. click "Publish"

Class Participation: This class is organized in such a way that everyone must participate.  I will call on you to offer your analysis of a text, or to answer questions about a text. This means you must do the assigned readings for every single class meeting, even if you haven’t written a blog post for that class. There is no way out of it. So be prepared to think and speak.

Final Papers: All reading and class discussion will be geared toward generating ideas for your papers. This means you must take notes throughout the semester in order to be adequately prepared when it comes time for you to compose a paper. As the semester progresses I will give you detailed print-outs as to how to write your papers and how the grading will work.

Formal papers must adhere to MLA formatting standards. Upon entering this course, it is assumed that you know how to properly cite sources, compose a works cited page, and generally meet the requirements of an MLA paper. If you fail to meet these technical requirements on either formal paper, your grade will be lowered. It is your responsibility to let me know early on if you are not well-versed in MLA protocol.

Course Policies

Technology: I will dismantle and make jewelry out of any laptops, cellphones (smart or otherwise), iPods/Pads that I see in the classroom.  That means that everyone will be taking notes with OLD-FASHIONED PEN AND PAPER (extra points for feather-and-ink).

Attendance: Attendance will be taken every day at 12:30pm.

Absence and lateness: More than two unexcused absences will lower your grade.  If you miss six classes for any reason, you get a failing grade for the course.  If you arrive late, come to me at the end of class to let me know you’ve been there so that I don’t mark you absent. Three lates count as an absence; arriving absurdly late to class counts as an absence; sleeping in class also counts as an absence.

Deadlines: Your completed papers and rough drafts are due at the start of class on the dates specified below.  These are hard deadlines; late papers will not be accepted and will be given a grade of ZERO.  If you sit down a day before your paper is due with nothing more than an essay title and a stress headache, go ahead and write your pages even if you feel that what you’ve done is no good.  Something is always better than nothing and this course is structured to help you through the writing process in stages.

Plagiarism: This means copying ideas, sentences, paragraphs, or papers from other writers.  Plagiarism is forbidden by CUNY policies, and is grounds for a failing grade.  IF YOU PLAGIARIZE, I WILL FIND OUT. 

Eating: Please don’t do it.  If you do, I will probably ask you to stop.

Disabilities: If you need special accommodations, contact Special Student Services, Shuster 238, (718) 960-8411.

Extra help: If you’re having any problems with your writing, reading, or anything else having to do with the course, or wish to come by and complain about city politics or trade MTA horror stories, come to my office hours during the specified times. If you need further help, check out the tutoring services at the Academic Center for Excellence in the Old Gym Building, Room 205. The ACE's phone number is 718-960-8175 and their tutoring hours during the fall and spring semesters are the following: Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-7 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

  

Course Schedule-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9/3                           Introduction

9/8                           “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (Walt Whitman)

9/10                          From The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jane Jacobs)

9/15 & 9/17               ~Walking in The City~

Texts by Michel de Certeau, Lisa Robertson, Jon Cotner

9/22                         From In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (Philippe Bourgois)

9/24                         Rosh Hashana; no class

9/29 & 10/1              Outside the Bones (Lyn Di Iorio), author will visit the class

10/6                          Texts by Anne Waldman and Gloria Anzaldua

10/8                          MLA workshop

10/13                        Columbus Day; no class

10/15 & 10/20           ~Literature and Pop Culture~

                                Texts by Andy Warhol, Tao Lin, K. Silem Mohammed

10/22                        Poems from Ameriscopia (Edwin Torres)

10/27 & 10/29           Ghosts  (Paul Auster)

11/3 & 11/5              Welcome to Our Hillbrow (Phaswane Mpe)

11/10                        From Blues People (Amiri Baraka)

11/12                        Poems from low east (David Henderson)

11/17 & 11/19           ~Afrofuturism~

                                Watch The Last Angel of History (John Akomfrah), stories by Samuel Delany

                                Discussion of final paper

11/24                        Private meetings with instructor to discuss final paper projects

11/26                        Stories by Lynne Tillman and Kathy Acker

12/1                         Poems from Subdoing Demons in America (John Giorno) and Collected Works of Joe Brainard

12/3                         Poems from Mysteries of Small Houses (Alice Notley)

12/8                         In-class peer review; first 4 pages of final paper due

12/10                       Presentations

12/15                       Presentations, Last day of class

12/22                       Final papers due by email