Fragments

(Notes from the graduate seminar: The Modern Aesthetics and Politics, professor Liou Liang-Ya) Week 2 Girl with Mandolin (1910) by Pablo Picasso Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction” (1925), The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Woolf breaks the assumption that modern practice of the art is an improvement upon the old. What is missing from the conventional novels - which she calls “materialist” - is the interiority of the characters. Writers like H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennet, and John Galsworthy are restricted by the conventions of plot, narrative, and description of realistic details. However, Woolf feels that their characters seem fake, lacking in vivacity. In contrast, Woolf holds James Joyce in high esteem. In Ulysses, Woolf argues, we have life itself. However, she still finds that Ulysses lacks certain rough and realistic details of life (comparing it to Tristram Shandy by Sterne). Hardy belongs to the Late-Victorian period; when she is already questioning certain concept...

(Notes from the graduate seminar: Postcolonial Studies, with Professor Guy Beauregard) Week 2 /*In the past week, the Japanese government has recognized the Ainu people as an indigenous tribe. */ Neology, “Culture in Transition”, Transition (1961) Soyinka, “Editorial”,  Transition  (1974) Transition  was a journal started in East Africa by Neology. It takes an ambitious interdisciplinary approach. Asking the question: What is East African Culture?  However, the juxtaposition of a coca cola advertisement tells the story of the transition from British colonialism to independence, which is then marked by the neo-colonialism of American capitalist markets. “Neocolonialism” is a term coined by Kwame Nkrumah, who Neology also mentions in his editorial.  Then, in 1974, Soyinka resurrected the journal. In Soyinka’s “Editorial” from Transition (1974), he tries to figure out a way from Neo-colonism to a truer form of decolonization. Amilcar Cabra was anothe...

Walking Man I (1960) by Alberto Giacometti (Notes from the graduate seminar: Existential Literature and the Ethics of Engagement, with Professor Kirill Ole Thompson) Week 1 Course Introduction We will screen Night Train to Lisbon (2013) and Mulholland Drive (2001) in class. Other recommended screenings include Woody Allen’s movies and the Before Sunset trilogy.  Textbooks:  Gordon Marino, Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library Classics);  Robert Solomon, Existentialism , 2 Ed. Recommended books:  Kevin Aho, Existentialism:  An Introduction ;  Beauvoir, The Second Sex (2nd Ed);  Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist’s Café.   The Starting Point The recent situations of human beings can’t be reasonably represented by an abstract system.  Kierkegaard thinks that in the beginning, man is quite empty. When he makes his first decisions, his character starts to take shape, but this character is always changing....

(Notes from the lecture course: Twentieth-century English Literature, with Professor Duncan Chesney) Week 1 The name of the course is problematic. "England” was consolidated in 1284 (including Wales). However, what we’re talking about in this course is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Because of the size of The British Empire, when we’re talking about 20th century British Literature, we’re talking about pretty much the entire world. When we talk about “English literature”, are we talking British, Anglophone, or English (and Wales)? The story of the 20th-century British literature is the ending of the British Empire. The Man Booker Prize: the most prestigious prize for the novel in the UK. From a rough survey of the prize recipients, we realize that not all of them consider themselves British (rather, English, Scottish, etc.). Having gone through the extensive colonialist history. No one is purely one thing anymore. By fiat, we will limit ourselves to a much smaller canonical vi...

(Notes from the graduate seminar: Comparative Methodology, with professor Patrick McGlynn) Week 1 When we study Sir Thomas Wyatt’s translation of Petrarch’s «Una candida cerva», it’s natural to compare it with Petrarch’s sonnet. We can also compare with the deer poem in Song of Songs . Because Wyatt’s has read and was influenced by the metaphors and expressions in Songs of Songs. Here, we can argue for genetic lines of commonality. But can we compare it to any poem with a deer in it?   How do we justify comparing 2 things? If we compare unlike things, is it still comparative literature? Does comparative literature assume likeness? Is contrast comparison? "Although thematics, or subject matter, is the starting point of many an investigation, it is never enough simply to discover the same themes appearing in different." (Saussy 13-14) What is the subject matter of Comparative literature? It’s more a way of thinking... What is the definition of comparative liter...