Analytical Imagination
Challenge Numero Dos
All essays MUST incorporate research
from at least TWO
scholarly sources* or they will not even be
considered for an A-level grade! All of the other recommendations and suggestions for success mentioned in Analytical Imagination Challenge Numero Uno are still in force for this outing.
*(no,
Wikipedia is NOT a “scholarly source”—nor is Spark Notes, for that
matter--if your research is not coming from a book off the shelf in
Love Library, or a legitimate journal hosted on JSTOR or Project Muse,
it is probably not a scholarly source. Take care to consult actual
ESSAYS, not the one to two page REVIEWS many of you used in Imagination
Challenge Numero Uno)
Something
to remember: several of the essays below feature works we will not have
read together as a class, meaning you have to read ahead and on your
own. These prompts have a higher degree of difficulty and come
with higher potential rewards. Also remember: when you are doing
research, you do NOT have to find an essay that specifically focuses on
the work you are writing about. For instance, you decide to write
a paper on left-handed hermaphrodites in the work of William
Shakespeare. It would not be essential to find a book or article
that directly addresses this phenomena in Shakespeare. It would
be equally useful to your reader to find research on 'singular sexual
phenonena' in all literature and then adapt that finding to your
particular focus in your essay. If this is NOT clear, ask for
more examples in class.
Your magical work is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, November 12, 2015. Place them
into the bag for your team, (The Reflections, The Inversions, The
Ghosts, The Perceptions, The Altered States, or my, Professor
Nericcio's wicked bag of tricks) at the front of the room in the
Hallucinatorium, GMCS 333.
Pick
ONE of the following prompts--all A-level essays will likely subject
these prompts to a healthy amount of metamorphosis, transmogrification,
adaptation, and warping!
1. Using close literary analysis and outside research explore
contrast elements of horror to be found in Carlos Fuentes' AURA and
Haruki Murakami's AFTER DARK.
2. Gothic
metamorphosis--track the evolution of the term "Gothic" as it moves
from the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson to that of Carlos Fuentes, Haruki Murakami, and/or Lidia Yuknavich: are they
really that different or can similar obsessions be seen to be dominating
their peculiar imaginations?
3. PROPOSITION: Daniel Clowes and Haruki Murakami share ruling passions
that show their works to be intimately intertwined. Expore, contest, or
reshape this proposition.
4. Of all the genres of literature, it is the "ESSAY" that gets the
least love. Where novels get mad affection and poetry is still
all the rage, the essay, whether it be autobiographical, critical,
exploratory, or journalistic, always comes in behind the pack.
Write an essay on the history of the essay clearly situating Daniel
Olivas's work in this literary tradition.
5. Parody Parody Parody! Lidia Yuknavitch's DORA: A HEAD CASE is a
classic parody--bringing Sigmund Freud back to life for a 21st century
audience. Write an essay on the history of parody focused on
Yuknavitch's writing. Only essays that
include substantive research on contemporary approaches to the idea of PARODY in will be assessed, so only select
this choice if you are up to the challenge of doing first-rate
intellectual archeology.
6. Using ideas adapted from your close reading of Daniel Olivas's
THINGS WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT (and two other outside sources), explore
what you to be the dominant goal/theme/focus of Salvador Plascencia's
THE PEOPLE OF PAPER.
7. Carlos Fuentes, Roman Polanski, and
Mary Gaitskill (author of "Secretary) all explore the nature of
domination and submission, of tyrrany and enslavement. Write a critical
essay that reveals key connections or contrasts between these three
artists' works in this regard.
8. Can Carlos Fuentes and Lidia Yuknavitch be thought of as 'erotic
writers.' In an essay that explores the history of the erotic and
determines Fuentes's and Yuknavitch's place in this tradition.
9. With AFTER DARK, you are confronted with a novel that is obsessed
with an old black and white movie (Godard's ALPHAVILLE). With DORA: A
HEAD CASE you encounter a novel obsessed with an old case history (Ida
Bauer's treatment by Sigmund Freud). Why is it that novels incorporate
older stories within the fabric of their own unfolding.
10.
Design your own thesis incorporating any two works we covered AFTER
October 8, 2015. Share your proposal with me, with a typed-up working
title and a supporting paragraph, by TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2015—OR you can email
it to me at
any moment before that class at memo@sdsu.edu Please make sure to
author a well-crafted proposal that outlines the
main focus of your
proposed study and one that also discloses the scholarly research you will include in your project. |