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Literature for Our Time ENG140Y1Y 2009-10 All lectures Fridays 2-4 Bader Theatre, Victoria University, 93 Charles St. W. |
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Professor: Nick Mount Office: 170 St. George Street, Room 704 Office Hours: W 2-4 E-Mail: nick.mount@utoronto.ca |
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CURRENT NOTICES
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Course Administrator Esther de Bruijn esther.debruijn@utoronto.ca |
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Teaching Assistants The tutorial schedule and teaching assistants are posted inside Blackboard. |
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Course Description This course explores how recent literature in English responds to our world in poetry, prose, and drama. In the fall term we’ll visit some of the more famous landmarks of early and mid-twentieth-century literature: London Bridge on a foggy winter morning, a lighthouse off the west coast of Scotland, a roadside ditch in Georgia, and the bean green waters off Nauset, Massachusetts, among others. In the spring term, our guides will be closer to our own time, young writers who respond in various ways to the search for identity and value in a world increasingly characterized by the collision of different identities, different values. In both terms, emphases will include literature’s reasons for being, the formal qualities of the works we’ll study, their historical context, their relation to other media, and their relevance to our moment in history. |
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Fall: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Prufrock, and Other Poems (Dover); Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Broadview); Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Grove); Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor); Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (Vintage); Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (Harcourt); Sylvia Plath, Ariel (Harper Perennial). Spring: John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Dramatists Play Service); Karen Solie, Modern and Normal (Brick); Lynn Crosbie, Liar (Anansi); Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon); Stephen Marche, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea (Penguin); Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Bloomsbury). All books are available at the University of Toronto Bookstore, 214 College St. |
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Fall 2009 Syllabus (assignments due in tutorials) |
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Date |
Tutorial |
Lecture |
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Sept. 11 |
None |
Introduction |
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Sept. 18 |
None |
Eliot, "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" |
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Sept. 25 |
Eliot, "Prufrock" |
Eliot, The Waste Land |
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Oct. 2 |
Eliot, Waste Land |
Woolf, To the Lighthouse |
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Oct. 9 |
Assignment #1 (in class) |
Lighthouse; Modern Times (film) |
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Oct. 16 |
To the Lighthouse |
Beckett, Waiting for Godot |
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Oct. 23 |
Waiting For Godot |
Achebe, Things Fall Apart |
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Oct. 30 |
Things Fall Apart |
Nabokov, Lolita |
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Nov. 6 |
Writing an Essay |
Nabokov, Lolita |
| Nov. 12-13 |
November Break |
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Nov. 20 |
Essay #1; Lolita |
O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find |
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Nov. 27 |
A Good Man |
Plath, Ariel |
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Dec. 4 |
Ariel |
Plath, Ariel |
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Spring 2010 Syllabus (assignments due in tutorials) |
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Date |
Tutorial |
Lecture |
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Jan. 8 |
None |
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (film) |
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Jan. 15 |
Hedwig |
Hedwig and the Angry Inch |
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Jan. 22 |
Modern and Normal | Solie, Modern and Normal |
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Jan. 29 |
Editing an Essay |
Lynn Crosbie, Liar |
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Feb. 5 |
Essay #2; Liar |
Ware, Jimmy Corrigan |
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Feb. 12 |
Jimmy Corrigan |
Ware, Jimmy Corrigan |
| Feb. 15-19 |
Reading Week (Feb. 15 = last day to drop course from record) |
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Feb. 26 |
None |
Marche, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea |
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Mar. 5 |
Shining |
Marche, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea |
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Mar. 12 |
Shining / If Nobody Speaks |
McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
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Mar. 19 |
Essay #3; If Nobody Speaks |
McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
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Mar. 26 |
Exam Strategies |
Conclusion |
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Evaluation One in-class paragraph (5%); three 1,000-1,250 word essays (45%); tutorial work (15%); three-hour final exam (35%). All work will receive a percentage grade, using the following scale and criteria: |
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90-100 |
A+ |
4.0 |
Outstanding |
A: Strong evidence of original thinking; good organization, capacity to analyze and synthesize; superior grasp of subject matter with sound critical evaluations; evidence of extensive knowledge base. Few writing errors. |
| 85-89 | A |
4.0 |
Excellent | |
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80-84 |
A- |
3.7 |
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77-79 |
B+ |
3.3 |
Good |
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73-76 |
B |
3.0 |
B: Evidence of grasp of subject matter; some evidence of critical capacity and analytic ability; reasonable understanding of relevant issues; evidence of familiarity with the literature. Good organization and writing. |
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70-72 |
B- |
2.7 |
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67-69 |
C+ |
2.3 |
Adequate |
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63-66 |
C |
2.0 |
C: Student who is profiting from her or his university experience; understanding of the subject matter; ability to develop solutions to simple problems in the material. |
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60-62 |
C- |
1.7 |
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57-59 |
D+ |
1.3 |
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53-56 |
D |
1.0 |
Marginal |
D: Some evidence of familiarity with subject matter and some evidence that critical and analytic skills have been developed. F: Little evidence of even superficial understanding of the subject matter; weakness in critical, analytic, and/or writing skills; limited or irrelevant use of the literature. |
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50-52 |
D- |
0.7 |
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0-49 |
F |
0.0 |
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Essays may be submitted up to a week late with the automatic loss of one percentage point a day, to a maximum of seven points (e.g., 70% to 63%). Essays will not be accepted beyond a week after the due date except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. |
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Essays Aside from basic reference works (such as a college-level dictionary), secondary sources are neither required nor permitted for essays in this class: your essays should be the product of the text you write about and your own ideas about that text. Please read this short essay, How Not to Plagiarize. Here are some of the basic conventions for formatting academic essays in the humanities; for more detailed help with writing and documenting essays, follow the links below.
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Further Resources The English Critical Essay, by Linda Hutcheon and Nancy Kang (advice on writing, organizing, and revising a critical essay, as well as MLA Documentation) Essay Style and Editing The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Writing at the University of Toronto Writing Plus: Academic Skills Workshops
The University of Toronto is committed to
accessibility. If you require accommodations for a disability, or have any
accessibility concerns about the course, the classroom or course materials,
please contact Accessibility Services at http://studentlife.utoronto.ca/accessibility. |
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We Knew Them When: Artist Survivors of ENG140 Musician Elliott Altilia (2004-05), film critic/actor Bil Antoniou (2005-06), actor Jamie Arfin (2003-04), musician Mike Ciani (2005-06), musician John Corrigan (TA, 2003-04), photographer John Currid (2008-09), jazz singer Nandita Dias (2003-04), musician Rob Duffy (2003-04), model Rebecca Dunham (2006-07), poet Triny Finlay (TA, 2004-05), rapper MC FÜBB (2004-05), comics artist Rosena Fung (2003-04), musician Robin Hatch (2006-07), musician Ross Hawkins (TA, 2006-07), columnist Joe Howell (2005-06), musician Ladan Hussein (2006-07) of Basket of Figs, music critic Graham Isador (2006-07), poet Yannick Marshall (2003-04), novelist Robert McGill (TA, 2004-05), percussionist Dan Morphy (2006-07), musician Craig Morrison (2006-07), music promoter Daniela Oliva (2004-05), playwright Aurora de Peña (2006-07), writer/musician Dave Proctor (2003-04), writer Nav Purewal (2003-04), writer/broadcaster Larry Solway (2003-04), filmmaker Jacob Stein (2004-05), Torontoist editor David Topping (2005-06), musician Chris Trigg (TA, 2006-07), musician Alex Werden of the London Parachutes (2005-06), musician Matt Wiesblatt (2008-09) of Cut Throat Britva, musician Alex Zenkovich (2008-09) of Invasions. |
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Updated 21 November 2009 |