Blog Post 9: Passages

Hi everyone,

As I mentioned at the end of class today, our reading for Monday presents us with another kind of challenge in this challenging novel. Just as we’re becoming more adept at grappling with the narrative, historical, and ethical questions of Morrison’s writing, we’re confronted in this section with a different kind of experimental writing that seems to raise many of the issues we’ve been talking about so far — memory, trauma, family dynamics, ownership and control — in a new and different mode of writing.

So for this blog post, you should spend some time thinking and writing about the experimental sections that appear towards the end of our section for Monday. Here are a few things you might consider: what’s it like to read these? How do we have to read these differently from the rest of the novel (or from novels overall, for that matter)? What seem to be the important features here in terms of form and style? You’re also free to respond to these pieces in whatever critical, analytical way seems useful to you, as long as you ground your thinking in some quotation and close analysis of the text there.

Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post — click the “Leave a Comment” link at the top of the post. It should be at least 250 words, and is due by midnight on Sunday, October 30th. After class on Monday, you should return to this thread and post a response to one classmate’s post by class time Wednesday the 2nd. If you have any questions, let me know via email.

Blog Post 8: Rememories

Hi everyone,

Since people have been doing a nice job pursuing their own interests and lines of thinking in the blog recently, I’m going to make this first post on Beloved open-ended and up to you again. There’s lots to think about in this first section of the novel — the question of what Morrison is doing with time, memory, and history is certainly one important thing we’ll discuss Monday, so you might write on that if it interests you. But feel free to focus on whatever seems significant as something that would allow you a way into thinking about the larger issues of the novel. The only fundamental requirement here is that you ground your thinking in close analysis of specific language from the novel — think about the larger questions and issues that Morrison’s rich prose opens up and what seems significant in it to you. Have a good weekend, and I’ll see you Monday!

Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post — click the “Leave a Comment” link at the top of the post. It should be at least 250 words, and is due by midnight on Sunday, October 23rd. After class on Monday, you should return to this thread and post a response to one classmate’s post by class time Wednesday the 26th. If you have any questions, let me know via email.

Blog Post 7: Dismantling Bodies

Hi everyone,

Nathanael West’s A Cool Million, our text for Monday (following the flipped schedule for next week I mentioned today), offers us a different direction in which to take our thinking so far about fiction, narrative, and the monstrous — West’s novella takes place in a world that lacks the fantastical elements that have defined the texts we’ve read so far, but is perhaps no less monstrous in its own way.

I’m going to make this first post on this text open-ended — you’re welcome to engage our reading for Monday along whatever lines intrigue you, as long as you frame your response in a critical, analytical way and ground it in quotation and analysis of some specific material from the text. One way to approach it might be to think about where and how we might find monstrosity in this text, and what West is doing with monstrosity as a narrative and social tool. But there are lots of other issues to explore here as well — I’m intrigued to see what everyone makes of this material!

Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post — click the “Leave a Comment” link at the top of the post. It should be at least 250 words, and is due by midnight on Sunday, October 16th. After class on Monday, you should return to this thread and post a response to one classmate’s post by class time Wednesday the 19th. If you have any questions, let me know via email.

 

Blog Post 6: Changes

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re having a good weekend so far. Our text for this week, Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, introduces us to a different social and historical context and a different kind of narrative world, so let’s use this blog post to set up some foundational thinking about how it’s addressing some of our continuing concerns: what seems to be important about monstrosity in this text? What characterizes it here, and what issues does it seem to be addressing? 

You’re free to pursue these questions in whatever way seems relevant and important to you, as long as you work directly with the language of Kafka’s story to develop your thinking.

Happy reading, and paper-writing — let me know if you have any questions as you’re working on things.

Reminder: your response should go in the comments section for this post — click the “Leave a Comment” link at the top of the post. It should be at least 250 words, and is due by midnight on Sunday, October 9th. After class on Monday, you should return to this thread and post a response to one classmate’s post by class time Friday the 14th (remember this is a changed date due to the Wednesday holiday). If you have any questions, let me know via email.