OF LITERATURE
|
English 395.401
|
Jim English |
| COML 395.401 | Office:
FBH
311 |
| Fall 2009 | Hours:
T 2-3, Th 1-2 |
| W 2:00-5:00 FBH 222 |
jenglish
<at> english.upenn.edu |
|
OF LITERATURE
|
| The process called
globalization has been going on for
centuries, but the last few decades have witnessed a dramatically rapid
emergence of new systems and technologies of global exchange. Our
task in this class will be to consider the ways these developments are
affecting literature – reshaping both the internal form of literary
works themselves and the larger system of literary marketing and
consumption. We will look at some of the more influential stories
of the global that have been offered by contemporary English-language
novelists: “world fictions” that seem to cut loose from any particular
national literary tradition or framework in order to map their themes
and characters onto a space of constant and often troubling
transnational contact. And we will put these narratives into the
context of a literary world system that is establishing new genres, new
readerships, new vehicles of distribution and promotion, new relations
between print, film, television, and video. |
| Reading for the course will consist of the following novels,
all available from the Penn Book Center: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace; William Gibson, Pattern Recognition; Jessica
Hagedorn, Dogeaters; Khaled
Hosseini, The Kite Runner;
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses;
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small
Things; Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sozaboy;
and Vikram Swarup, Q&A.
We will discuss the film adaptations of Hosseini's and Swarap's novels,
which are available for individual or small-group screening at
Rosengarten Reserves. Throughout the semester we will also be reading
essays and excerpts from some of the major scholars and theorists of
globalization, including economists, sociologists, and anthropologists
as well as literary critics. Some of these readings are collected
in The
Globalization Reader, ed. Lechner and Boli (at the Penn Book
Center); others will be made available electronically or as handouts.
Written work will include three one-hour exams and a 10-12 page term
paper
based on independent research and submitted in draft as well as final
form. 50% of the final grade for this class will be based on the draft (25%) and final version (25%) of the research paper. The exams will count 10% each. The remaining 20% will be based on attendance, quality of participation, and miscellaneous assignments such as the bibliography and "findings." |