Imagination
Challenge #2
English 301 Freud
at the Bank, Marx on the Couch • Summer 2002
In
order to do well on this assignment, you must forget about your peculiar
if affable intellectual guide. The only people who really count are the
readers you write for: the audience for your paper. Who are they? Well,
they are a lot like you. They are impatient and easily bored. They like
specific details; they love direct, succinct quotes woven carefully into
the fabric of an essay. If you are going to write about an image, they
want to SEE a reproduction of that image. They hate misspellings and passive
verbs. They like tangy language which is fresh and not filled with clichés.
Like you, they RESENT having their time wasted. Recall that the title of
this challenge is "Imagination Challenge " so USE your imagination.
While you are not required to use secondary criticism or outside resources
on this first essay challenge, a good starting place for published scholarly
approaches to the materials in this class are the Modern Language Association
Bibliography and the ProQuest Research Library available through Love Library's
LION
SYSTEM.
You
should take no less than 3 and no more than 5 pages (double-spaced typed,
carefully proofread, with a dynamic, suggestive title) to complete your
task. No cover sheet or folder-cover is necessary and late papers will
NOT be accepted. The completed essay is due under my office door, Adams
Humanities 4117 on Monday July 1, 2002 under my office door at 5pm, AH
4117.
Select
ONE of the following challenges:
1.
REDEFINE OBSESSION
Contrast
the nature of "obsession" in the work of Darren Aronofsky with that of
Susan Daitch.
2.
PROXY/ PROSTHETIC
Psychologically
we make all kinds of substitutions when it comes to balancing our need
to quench our various desires AND maintaining our residences OUTSIDE of
prisons, asylums and other state institutional apparatuses. Explore
the manifestation of psychological substitution--what we have discussed
in class as proxying or the 'use of prosthetics' in the writing of Mary
Shelley and Tino Villanueva.
3.
WRITING VERSUS CINEMA
While
the novel LC can be read as a piece of innovative historical fiction
and Tino Villanueva's poetry in Scene From the Movie Giant can be
read as a series of dynamic poems, each can also be read as theoretical
tracts: LC as a philosophical meditation on the relationship
between fiction and history; Scene From the Movie Giant as a study
of the relationship between psychology and film. Write an analysis
that explores these notions further.
4.
FILM and THEATER
Rent
and carefully screen any ONE of the following filmed versions of Kafka'sThe
Trial: The Trial directed by David Hugh Jones (1993); or Procès,
Le / The Trial (1963) directed by Orson Welles. Contrast these
projects with the staged version of the same fiction by Héctor Ortega,
The
Comic Trial of Joseph K.
5.
Design your own Thesis.
Design
your own thesis incorporating two or three works we have completed!
Email your paragraph-length proposal to me
by NOON, Friday, June 28, 2002.
6.
POETRY on TRIAL
Contrast
the poetic dynamics of Martin Espada and Tino Villanueva
7.
Marx and Freud and Daitch
Do
the theories of Marx and Freud appear salient with regard to the fiction
of Susan Daitch. Identify the ghost of Sigmund and Karl in the machine
of Daitch's novel.
8.
GRAPHIC NARRATIVES
Contrast
Robert Crumb's and José Luis Cuevas's adaptations of the work of
Franz Kafka. Include specific close readings of SPECIFIC illustrations.
It is assumed your essay will be illustrated with representative xeroxes.
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