ENGL 380 - English Seminar

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2016/17b: Black Literary Urbanism. (Same as URBS 380)  This course aims to explore how African American creative artists have staged black encounter with the American city. None of the writers we will study this semester conceives of the metropolis in the same way and this diversity of urban visions will greatly enrich our discussion.  The following inquiries, however, will tame and shape our study of what may appear to be seemingly disparate voices and perspectives. To what extent do these fictional blacks feel at home in their cities? Does the city—through its public places (bars, salons) and private spaces (apartments, churches) appear so inhospitable that it hinders these characters from making a claim on the place they (must) live? How is the black body read and understood in the urban environment? How are black characters read by those who perceive them? How do they perceive themselves? Finally, if we understand black urban spaces as carceral constructs, what factors allow characters movement and transport? Do these characters ever transcend the immobility that the metropolis seeks to impose upon them? Among the writers explored are Wright, Petry, Brooks, Himes, Naylor, Goines, Hayden, and Whitehead.Tyrone Simpson.

Topic for 2016/17b: Finnegans Wake. A sustained mad romp through James Joyce’s late incomparable hilarious and moving masterpiece Finnegans Wake. We will follow the scandalous exploits of HCE (Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Here Comes Everybody, etc.), his stalwart wife ALP (Anna Livia Plurabelle, American Lake Poetry etc.) and their rambunctious competitive offspring Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman and heartbreaking Issy. In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Bringer of Plurabilities (haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven), we will strive to become fluent in the stuttering unbridled tongue of the night. A certain degree of ambitious insanity is required. Paul Russell.

One 3-hour period.