This assignment is due Monday, November 21, 1999 under the door of my office in ADAMS HUMANITIES room 4117. It should be no more than five (5) pages in length, carefully proofread, double-spaced with 1 inch margins and a 12 point plain font (serif preferred). It should have a dynamic title and every effort should be made to write so well you would be willing to wake up your best friend and/or sexual partner for the chance to read your paper. It should be written so well that, should you be a devotee of this annual holiday, you would rush under the Christmas tree to unwrap your paper first among all other gifts. It should be written so well.... oh, you get the point. All jokes aside, the highest marks will to those students who carefully weave specific, pertinent, direct quotes into the body of their work.
Essay topics
1. Certainly directors Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove may be seen to overlap in significant ways--this is to be expected in two films that strategically target the tragedy and comedy of war, both "cold" and hot. But the novel of Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind can be seen to be moving in a similar trajectory. Briefly explore the connection between these three works, these three visionary critics of America at war.
2. Are Tod Hackett (Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust) and Humberto (Gilbert Hernandez's Blood of Palomar) in any way similar? Explore the connections and contradictions between these singular American artists.
3. Specifically address how your encounter with living American artists (the Taco Shop Poets and Oliver Mayer) directly altered your reading of specific moments in their works. Do take the time to carefully read their works BEFORE you meet them in class to maintain the non-fictional nature of this particular essay. In addition, you might want to come to their presentations with a specific question in mind so that you can gracefully incorporate their responses into your essay.
4. Show how any three artists selected from the required readings in this seminar redefine ideas surrounding the phenomena of an apocalypse.
5. Briefly speculate upon the metamorphosis of the definition of "American" after a critical reading of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Martin Espada's Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
6. Describe the "dance" of sex and psychology in the work of Nathanael West, Toni Morrison and Gilbert Hernandez.
7. Design your own thesis incorporating any three authors/works of your own choosing. A one-page typed essay proposal must be submitted to me for approval by THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11 in CLASS.
8. "Mad America" might have been a better title for the books and films
collected and carefully ingested this semester. Explore this possibility
with direct reference to at least five works from our required readings
and/or screenings.
English 494
Modern American Fiction: Millennium Virus/"American Apocalyptic Novels
and Films
Professor William A. Nericcio
This assignment is due Monday, November 21, 1999 under the door of my office in ADAMS HUMANITIES room 4117. It should be no more than five (5) pages in length, carefully proofread, double-spaced with 1 inch margins and a 12 point plain font (serif preferred). It should have a dynamic title and every effort should be made to write so well you would be willing to wake up your best friend and/or sexual partner for the chance to read your paper. It should be written so well that, should you be a devotee of this annual holiday, you would rush under the Christmas tree to unwrap your paper first among all other gifts. It should be written so well.... oh, you get the point. All jokes aside, the highest marks will to those students who carefully weave specific, pertinent, direct quotes into the body of their work.
Essay topics
1. Certainly directors Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove may be seen to overlap in significant ways--this is to be expected in two films that strategically target the tragedy and comedy of war, both "cold" and hot. But the novel of Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind can be seen to be moving in a similar trajectory. Briefly explore the connection between these three works, these three visionary critics of America at war.
2. Are Tod Hackett (Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust) and Humberto (Gilbert Hernandez's Blood of Palomar) in any way similar? Explore the connections and contradictions between these singular American artists.
3. Specifically address how your encounter with living American artists (the Taco Shop Poets and Oliver Mayer) directly altered your reading of specific moments in their works. Do take the time to carefully read their works BEFORE you meet them in class to maintain the non-fictional nature of this particular essay. In addition, you might want to come to their presentations with a specific question in mind so that you can gracefully incorporate their responses into your essay.
4. Show how any three artists selected from the required readings in this seminar redefine ideas surrounding the phenomena of an apocalypse.
5. Briefly speculate upon the metamorphosis of the definition of "American" after a critical reading of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Martin Espada's Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
6. Describe the "dance" of sex and psychology in the work of Nathanael West, Toni Morrison and Gilbert Hernandez.
7. Design your own thesis incorporating any three authors/works of your own choosing. A one-page typed essay proposal must be submitted to me for approval by THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11 in CLASS.
8. "Mad America" might have been a better title for the books and films
collected and carefully ingested this semester. Explore this possibility
with direct reference to at least five works from our required readings
and/or screenings.
English 494
Modern American Fiction: Millennium Virus/"American Apocalyptic Novels
and Films
Professor William A. Nericcio
This assignment is due Monday, November 21, 1999 under the door of my office in ADAMS HUMANITIES room 4117. It should be no more than five (5) pages in length, carefully proofread, double-spaced with 1 inch margins and a 12 point plain font (serif preferred). It should have a dynamic title and every effort should be made to write so well you would be willing to wake up your best friend and/or sexual partner for the chance to read your paper. It should be written so well that, should you be a devotee of this annual holiday, you would rush under the Christmas tree to unwrap your paper first among all other gifts. It should be written so well.... oh, you get the point. All jokes aside, the highest marks will to those students who carefully weave specific, pertinent, direct quotes into the body of their work.
Essay topics
1. Certainly directors Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove may be seen to overlap in significant ways--this is to be expected in two films that strategically target the tragedy and comedy of war, both "cold" and hot. But the novel of Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind can be seen to be moving in a similar trajectory. Briefly explore the connection between these three works, these three visionary critics of America at war.
2. Are Tod Hackett (Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust) and Humberto (Gilbert Hernandez's Blood of Palomar) in any way similar? Explore the connections and contradictions between these singular American artists.
3. Specifically address how your encounter with living American artists (the Taco Shop Poets and Oliver Mayer) directly altered your reading of specific moments in their works. Do take the time to carefully read their works BEFORE you meet them in class to maintain the non-fictional nature of this particular essay. In addition, you might want to come to their presentations with a specific question in mind so that you can gracefully incorporate their responses into your essay.
4. Show how any three artists selected from the required readings in this seminar redefine ideas surrounding the phenomena of an apocalypse.
5. Briefly speculate upon the metamorphosis of the definition of "American" after a critical reading of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Martin Espada's Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hands and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
6. Describe the "dance" of sex and psychology in the work of Nathanael West, Toni Morrison and Gilbert Hernandez.
7. Design your own thesis incorporating any three authors/works of your own choosing. A one-page typed essay proposal must be submitted to me for approval by THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11 in CLASS.
8. "Mad America" might have been a better title for the books and films collected and carefully ingested this semester. Explore this possibility with direct reference to at least five works from our required readings and/or screenings.