 |
      |
|
PASSPORT
SUMMER 2013 Wherein you will find all
the basic
rules that will allow you to bag a delicious A+
for your work this term;
alternatively, this is also the place to read the
basic rules that may spell
your doom if you elect to be a total mindless
slacker.
On this
humble
page you will find the various laws of our groovy
literary/arts “nation”, circa
Summer 2013—here you will find listed all the little
gates, cages, locks,
handcuffs, and statutes, ordinances, edicts, and
principles that will allow our
exotic and experimental collective to prosper! Let
me underscore that you have absolute
intellectual freedom in our class, but to receive
that right you must also
succumb to the reasonable responsibilities outlined
in this, our passport.
After all, we want to have a blast, be the best
literature class on the West
Coast even! But to do that, we need some peace and
quiet—to forge our forays
into post 1960s American sex, drugs, film, lit, art,
and rock’n’roll, to excel
in our survey of United States-born/borne
Literature, film, graphic narrative,
etc. Law 1.117 aka,
Alpha-B-ninerREAD_READ_READ: Every day
you
walk into this class you will have COMPLETED the
reading that appears on the
day-to-day class calendar! This calendar is online
and located at this
location: http://eyegiene.sdsu.edu/2013/summer/daytoday.html Note that
this
site will be constantly subject to updates and that
you are responsible for
visiting it at LEAST once each day during the summer
session. Please think
twice about joining us if you have not finished the
readings—the quality of our
class depends upon your dedicated work and your
relentless and independent
curiosity. Without your periodic intellectual
donations, the class is likely to
evolve into a boring, even painful waste of time.
Coming to a literature class
without doing the reading is like a gardener trying
to raise roses without
s***, a surgeon trying to operate without a scalpel,
a fireman without a hose,
a streetwalker without, er, well, I better stop
there. Do
the readings. Do
them twice if you can MAKE the time! Law 1.2389 aka
Beta-Tango67PCkaput: Your laptop,
ipad, netbook, etcetera etcetera
will be asleep IN YOUR BAGS
during class. Have you noticed how anytime a student
uses a laptop in an
auditorium there is a "cone of distraction"
alongside and behind the
student using a computer? This is usually due to
said student surfing the web
via wi-fi perusing erotic delights, facebook profile
updates, tweets, and TMZ
news flashes. Law 1.311893 aka
Zed-BogieViperCell: Your
magnificent cellphone, your cherished blackberry,
your fetishized iPhone, your
primordial pager will be off, off, OFF;
if for some reason you are expecting an emergency
call, set it on VIBRATE (for
privacy, pleasure, or both!), let me know about your
emergency before class,
and sit in the back near an exit. Cellphones KILL
collective spaces of learning
with their ill-timed, annoying clattering rings,
bongs, squeaks, chirps, and
themes. Yes, the trauma of that delayed text, Yes,
the horror of that missed
hook-up call, will no doubt set you up for years and
years on an analyst's
couch, but we, the rest of us will gain some
silence, a kind of sanctuary
without which ideas wither on the vine. Law 1.499556 aka
Charlie-Delta_Thief: PLAGIARISM
is
for cads, thieves, and idiots who desire an "F" for
the class.
Plagiarism comes from the Latin word, "plagiarius"
which means
kidnapper, plunderer, or (get this!) seducer--not a
GOOD thing. In the
university, plagiarism refers to the art and crime
of presenting other people's
work under your own signature--definitely a BAD
thing. While your professor is
forbidden by CSU/SDSU code from tattooing the word LOSER on the foreheads of guilty
students, he can promise that
felonious students will be remanded to the
state-authorized SDSU executioners.
SDSU is SERIOUS about this shit, so don't take any
chances! Rely
on your own mind and your own precious
imagination! VIRTUAL
PARTICIPATION The social
media site for this class is located here: http://facebook.com/eyegiene.
If you are a member of Facebook, Mark
Zuckerberg’s mad experiment, then
you are expected to post class-related links,
images, videos, articles, etc at
least ONCE a week.
If you have not
bought into Zuckerberg’s mad experiment, then send
your materials
to me via email. I don’t promise
that I will post ALL of your forwarded materials,
but I will try to see that
some of them make their way to the fabulous
internets. The class also has a
tumblr page here: http://sexdrugslit.tumblr.com I
will be posting course-related materials
here from time to time—feel free to follow the page
and make suggestions for
additions/deletions. WRITING AND
EXAMINATIONS You will be
asked to write TWO Analytical Imagination
Challenge—aka TWO 3 to 5 page essays
during our summer session. Please note that you will
never be compelled to write
about something you absolutely loathe. Please see me
during office hours and we
can always brainstorm a substitute essay assignment.
There will be an
Examination Festival (aka, the FINAL) on the last
regularly scheduled day of
class. Your
final is comprehensive; it
assumes you have read all the books and screened all
the movies that are part
of our required work. If you do the work, the final
is a breeze--even
"fun" if you can believe it. If you slack off, you
will find the
final as enjoyable as a guest appearance with Dr.
Phil. QUIZZES,
CINETREKS, AND ATTENDANCE There will
also
be a couple of in-class Panic-Inducing Challenges
otherwise known as
"check that you did the reading carefully and on
time quizzes." You
can expect these miserable quizzes from time to
time, the number of quizzes
depending on how many of you are nostalgic for high
school. In other words, if
everyone acts like a talented university
undergraduate, we will enjoy FEW if
any quizzes during our semester. The whole point of
this class is to work
together, the idea being that we convert our boring,
somewhat high-tech
classroom into a chaotic, unpredictable and exciting
intellectual laboratory.
Missing class, you miss as well the whole point of
the adventure. So please
bypass no more than three classes. Miss MORE than
three classes during the term
and your grade will decay in an ugly way. EXAMPLES:
your hard-earned A- will
morph into a B-; your "gentleman's C" will appear on
the webportal as
a "D." Ditching this class too often will be as fun
as a case of
flesh-eating virus. Also
note from time
to time we will NOT meet in the classroom—I am
cancelling some classroom time
in order to compensate for the 3 or so “cinetreks”
you will be making this
semester: more on “cinetreks” or “out of body”
experiences to follow. GRADING
INFORMATION * 33%
Quizzes,
In-class "Panic-Inducing Challenges"(c), In-class
participation,
attendance, cinetreks, etc. * 33%
"Analytical Imagination Challenge" aka The BIG Essay
* 33% Final
Examination Festival * 1%
Chutzpah, ganas,
will, and drive. OFFICE HOURS
Why 'office
hours'? I expect you to visit me in office hours at
least once during the
semester. At SDSU, it's easy to fall through the
cracks, to feel that you are
nothing but a number or some warm pile of sentient
flesh filling a seat. In
order to underscore that the person teaching you is
somewhat human, please make
a point to take the time to introduce yourself in
person. My office hours will
be for an hour before and after class Mondays thru
Wednesdays in Arts and
Letters 273. If these hours are inconvenient, do not
hesitate to call me at
619.594.1524 either to schedule an appointment or
discuss your questions via
telephone. My E-mail address is: memo@sdsu.edu or bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu. |
