Comparative Literature 30C: Major Works of European Literature from the Romantic to the Contemporary Period
Elizabeth Swanstrom, Instructor
Summer 2007
Note: If you are a student with a disability and would like to discuss special academic accommodations, please contact me by e-mail or during office hours.
Required Texts
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein
Wells, H.G. The Time Machine
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five
Course Reader (Available at the UCSB Bookstore)
Films
Alphaville. Jean-Luc Godard (dir.)
Metropolis. Fritz Lang (dir.)
Grade Breakdown
Participation (both in class and via the online class forum) 15 %
Questions, Response Papers (1 page, single-spaced) & Quizzes 10
Presentation 5
Mid-term Exam 20
Final Exam: 20
Final Paper 30
Assignment Guidelines
Late Papers
Late papers will be penalized a full letter grade for each day past due. You are, however, allowed to turn in one late paper, no questions asked, within one week of the original deadline. This does not apply for the final paper.
Attendance
Since this class will offer frequent opportunities for in-class writing, peer revision, and group discussion, attendance is mandatory. It is generally not possible to make up missed class work.
Plagiarism Warning
Materials submitted to fulfill academic requirements must represent a student’s own efforts. Any act of academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Readings Due
Note that this schedule will change as we make our way through the readings. We may wish to linger over some texts and go swiftly past others. Flexibility is key. All changes will be announced in class, however, so if you are absent, please plan accordingly.
Week One
Monday: None. Introductions; Course Overview; close reading.
Tuesday: Kant. “What Is Enlightenment?”; Galvani, Luigi. “Animal Electricity”; La Mettrie, Julien Offray. “Man a Machine”; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “The Social Contract” and “The Duties of Women”; Buffon, Georges. “The Rat”
Wednesday: Frankenstein. Introduction by Maurice Hindle through Chapter 2.
Thursday: Frankenstein. Chapter 3 through the end of Volume 1; D’Alembert, Jean Le Rond. “The Human Mind Emerged from Barbarism”
Presentations:
Week Two
Monday: Frankenstein. Volume II; Bichat, Xavier. “Cells and Tissues and Their Relation to the Body.”
Tuesday: Frankenstein. Chapters 1-5 of Volume III
Wednesday: Frankenstein. End of Volume III; Hume, David. “Of Miracles and the Origin of Religion”; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Kubla Khan, or, a Vision in a Dream, a Fragment”
Thursday: Shelley. “Ozymandius”; Hawkings. “Time’s Arrow,” from A Brief History of Time; Borges, “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan“ (“The Garden of Forking Paths”); Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species (Excerpt); Wells, H.G. Island of Dr. Moreau (excerpt) Presentations:
Week Three
The Time Machine
Monday: The Time Machine. Chapters 1-5; Davies, Paul. “How to Build a Time Machine.”
Tuesday: The Time Machine. Chapters 6-12; Hesiod. “The Ages of Man,” from Works and Days; Kipling, Rudyard. “The Deep-Sea Cables”; illustration of “The Deep-Sea Cables”; Holub, Miroslav. “In the Microscope”
Wednesday: Metropolis; Marinetti. Futurists’ Manifesto ; Lovelace, Ada. “Sketch of the Analytical Engine” (excerpt); Butler. Erewhon (excerpt)
Thursday: Metropolis; “Review of Metropolis” by H.G. Wells; Introduce We
Week Four
The Time Machine / We
Monday: Review for Mid-Term
Tuesday: Mid-Term Examination
Wednesday: We, Introduction through Record 9; Benjamin, Walter. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”; Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto;
Thursday: We, Records 10-18; Adorno. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (excerpt)
Presentations:
Week Five
We / Slaughterhouse-Five
Monday: No Class–Labor Day
Tuesday: We, Records 19-40; Tsutsui, Yasutaka. “Standing Woman“; cummings, ee. “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r”; Emmett, Williams. “Typewriter”
Wednesday: Slaughterhouse-Five, chapters 1-4; Freud, Sigmund. “Note upon the Mystic Writing Pad”; Heidegger, Martin. “The Question Concerning Technology”; Amis, Martin. “Denton’s Death”
Thursday: None. Paper Proposals due.
Presentations:
Week Six
Slaughterhouse-Five, chapters 5-6; Rilke, Rainer Maria. “Panther”
Monday: Slaughterhouse-Five, chapters 7-8; Lux, Thomas. “The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently”
Tuesday: Slaughterhouse-Five, chapters 9-10; Kafka, Franz. “In the Penal Colony”
Wednesday: None. Final Examination
Thursday: Conclusion; Course Evaluations
Friday: Final Papers due in my box.
Presentations: