What Did You Learn in this Class About Literature, Writing, Life?

Hi Everyone--

[scroll down for next week's schedule and Coetzee topics]

At the end of a semester I like to find out what you are taking away from this course.  So here are my questions for you:

1.  What 1-2 things did you learn about literature that you didn't know before?  What was most intriguing or valuable to you in the literature we studied?


2.  What did you learn about yourself as a writer?  What new skills or ways of thinking did our discussions open up for you?


Post your answer here any time before August 4 or plan to write in class for 15 minutes on August 4.

Here are some thoughts about literature from famous writers--feel free to include your reactions, your own definition:

Donald Barthelme says:

"literature is a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart."


Octavio Paz says:

"Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history."

Emily Dickinson says,

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Steven Pinker says:

"If you aren't just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them."

Final Essay Topics and General Plans for End of Semester

Hello Everyone:  You have been a GREAT class.  It was a pleasure to work with you.  Here is our final schedule and below I have listed topics for the final essay that we developed together in class.

Submit final essay on Tuesday August 4 between 10 and 11am in our classroom, C713.

For extra credit (optional) submit either original poem, poem of someone else (identified) with analysis of its relevance to a course theme, or analysis of film screened, Losing Isaiah--also on August 4. (Or you may post this on blog here.)

You may come by my office (E103N) on Thursday August 6 between 11am and 2pm to receive your grade and review your final essay.

Final Essay on Coetzee’s Disgrace

  In your final essay for The Novel (English 260), please respond to one of the following topics we have discussed in class.  You may also develop a topic of your own if it is approved during our final class discussion of topics on July 28.

Remember to develop a clear thesis (claim) in your opening paragraph and to provide strong supporting evidence from the text.  Extra credit if you use at least one of the secondary sources we discussed or one you find on your own through the JStor search we reviewed. Please use MLA format for all documentation.

Here are topics we discussed in class (credit given to your topics):

1.     The role of dogs in the novel: how is David Lurie changed by them?  What specific qualities do the dogs have that are significant?  David and Lucy alternate in behaving "like a dog": what is meaning of this? (Ricardo)

2.     The roles (and possible symbolism) of animals throughout the novel—their identification with specific characters.

3.     The role of Petrus in the novel: reversal of power structure—what he seeks; what he gains.

4.     David Lurie’s evolution as a character: from eros to agape to caritas: how do we see this and what is Coetzee suggesting about love, forgiveness?

5.     David Lurie’s connection to Lucifer as described in the novel via the Byron poem, “Lara,: “an erring spirit.” (Julien)

6.     “To be a subject is to be subjected, exposed to the bruising demand of the other” (Levinas quoted in Eagleton 223).  How does this idea fit what happens to either David or Lucy or both?

7.     Lucy functions as a scapegoat/martyr for white, post-apartheid South Africa. (Leah)

8.     David Lurie's assumptions about other characters in the novel are a way of convincing himself that he is in control of his identity, even his mortality. (Niko)

Some Research for your Coetzee Essay

Greetings Novel Students--

As we discussed in class you should come to our last class on Tuesday with a draft or at least an outline for your final essay on Coetzee.  We will discuss your work in class.

As always you should plan to quote from the text and develop a claim that you support with examples, and include a works cited entry.

You may also, for extra credit write a short poem related to any of the themes, characters, symbols we have discussed in The Novel course.

I've asked you to do a little research and include one source in your final essay.  Here are some sample published essays on Coetzee with a few quotations:

—“But change David does.  And the transmutation is precipitated by what Martin Buber calls ‘tiny episodes’ if reciprocity and exchange with animals.  In being close to animals (even when they are dead), in learning from them, and in dwelling amongst them, David’s capacity for sympathy is broadened” (480).

—“Put at its starkest, the novel’s articulation of disgrace cannot succeed without animals” (472).

—“As David descends deeper into his disgrace, he travels alongside the animals that share his fate” (   ) 

——He actually has to stop at the roadside to recover himself; tears flow down his face that he cannot stop, his hands shake.  He  does not understand what is happening to him” (143).

—Herron, Tom.  “The Dog Man: Becoming animal in Coetzee’s Disgrace.” Twentieth   Century Literature. Vol. 51 (4) Winter 2005: 467-490.

— _____________________________________________________________

—The novel is criticized for reproducing stereotypical representations of black and white relationships in South Africa.

—“Lucy accepts her fate as a symbol of the redistribution of power in postapartheid South Africa and sees her rapists as gathering apartheid debts” (74).

—“. . .when it comes to representing herself as a rape victim. . . .If she presses charges, the gendered dimension of the rape will immediately be recuperated by a racially motivated reading and reify social hierarchies that have historically been produced. . .through the link between rape and the construction of race” (75).

—“. . .one may speculate that her refusal to seek legal redress is indeed linked to her awareness of the history of ‘black peril’ scares and their justification of black oppression” (76).

Mardorossian, Carine M. “Rape and the Violence of Representation in J.M Coetzee’s   Disgrace. Research in African Literatures. Vol. 42 (4) (Winter 2011): 72-83.

________________________________________________________________

—What is David’s fall from grace?  Thinks about castration—body as enemy

—Ageing men and women are disgraceful: his own sexual activity is described disparagingly—”a man exercising himself on the body of a woman”

—Loss of authority also intellectual: he is castrated in the “emasculated institution of learning (4)

—Self-disgust, uselessness, loss of authority—that links David’s sense of being “out of place” with the unwanted animals of Bev Shaw’s animal refuge” (Kossew 157).

—“David, paradoxically, falls from grace because of his inability to question the authority of desire itself and in this he is slave to his bodily instincts.  All mind, he falls prey to the body” (158)

—“In offering himself to the service of dead dogs selfish David finds a kind of grace” (160)

—Kossew, Sue. “The Politics of Shame and Redemption in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.” Research in African Literatures. Vol 34 (2) (Summer 2003: 155-162.

Post your Revised Thesis for The Roundhouse Here before Thursday Class

If we discussed your blog in class Tuesday, post a revision of your thesis here.  We gave you feedback so try to sharpen your focus, your claim.

If you did not post, please do so today.  Review the Purdue Owl Guidelines for creating a thesis by posing a question and then answering it (class handout).

Look at topics for Roundhouse posted in previous blogs as well as your classmates' great ideas!

Try to give follow-up evidence (3 examples) that will help you develop your essay.

We will review these again on Thursday!

Possible Essay Topics for The Roundhouse

In this blog, due Monday July 13, by midnight, choose one of the topics listed below or create one of your own.  Remember the rule: you are making a claim, not just summarizing what happens.

Create a claim and give two to three supporting examples.  We will discuss topics in class on Tuesday:

—1.  Joe’s coming of age: character analysis—changes in family relationship

—2.  Ojibwe stories and their relevance to themes of novel--Nanapush

—3.  Significance of roundhouse—symbolism—role of “mother”

—4.  Moral evil and ideas about justice: Wiindigos?

—5.  Ethical choices: How does Joe approach and justify his act?

—6.  Role of humor in the novel—its function? eg boys pretending to convert

—7.  Jurisdiction: Example of unfair laws the novel exposes; father’s purpose: casserole story

Research on The Roundhouse: due Monday night before Tuesday class, July 7

Let's do some research on Native American life, values, religious practices, abuse and rape, and jurisdiction issues.  Here is a list of possible topics.  Choose one and research it!  Post links to videos if you find something interesting.  We will make this blog part of our discussion next week.

Your assignment: find some information about one or more of the following, give us link to site, and briefly discuss importance of what you have found in relation to novel.  Youtube info also welcome--put up link.

1.  Roundhouse
2. Sweat lodge
3. Ojibwe
4. Chippewa
5. Anishaabe
7. mythologies, folklore of Chippewa nation
8. rape and Native American women
9. doodem
10. Native American land and jurisdiction issues

Special note about our blogs:  these count for 20% of your grade as per our syllabus.  If you don't the blog by deadline, you cannot make it up, so please do the blog!

(homework)