Instr: Liddy, James
Office: CRT 517; 229-5441
e-mail: liddy@uwm.edu
Office hours: W 3:00pm - 4:00 or by appt.
Course Information: M; 7:30pm - 10:10pm; CRT 468
This course primarily reflects books, published within the last 15 years, that have influenced the instructor's sense of literature and society. Each of them has a separate effect that seems to him relevant at this time, very late 20c. and early 21c. Students are expected to build up a similar list of contemporary or neo-contemporary works that affect their aesthetic and social views and their careers as a writer. The students' list of seminal books (two out of their larger list)) will be presented by means of class reports (ten minutes and rebuttal) There will also be a creative writing component; four weeks into the semester the last segment of the class will turn into a workshop that will allow latitude for different genres. There will be three-page papers on Coetzee, Gordon, and Bolano due on September 22, October 6, and October 20. A creative writing portfolio of 12 pages will be due on December 8, in lieu of creative writing students can write another paper. There will an exam on the remaining texts in the classroom on December 1. A term paper showing independent research of seven pages, eleven pages for graduate students, is due on November 24 (extensions will be given). Academic work will be graded on research, complexity, subtlety, and clarity; creative work on originality, and interestingly charged language. Each kind of writing should show some reciprocity to the trends, innovations, and demands of the literary writing in the course. Assuming attendance is in order, grades will be: 20% paper, 20% exam, 20% response papers, 20% portfolio, 20% reports and discussion. We shall drink cider and eat cake with rings in it on Halloween.
Texts in order of teaching schedule:
