HEDONISTIC ESSAY #1 or
The Imagination Challenge

So many students fret and stress
over writing assignments--but it
should not. I mean, after all,
this is an "English" class
and writing essays is as "English
class" as you can get. It would
be like freaking out if you walked
into your Chemistry lab and fainting
at the sight of a beaker, screaming
at the appearance of a test-tube.

Still, I get it.

But we can do things another way. We
do not have to be encarcerated by
tradition nor policed by conventions.

We can, for this class, with our
Naked Eyes open, (our I also!), write
pieces that organically represent our
encounters with complex writers, artists,
photographers, and directors in ways
that actually bring us pleasure.

I was going to consult the Oxford
English Dictionary on hedonism* but
the good old Wikipedia had a clearer
explication of the term:

*free! with your registration to SDSU--check out
hedonic, the root term for hedonism here.



So your main goal with this essay will be to
select a subject-area and objects (at least two
drawn from our required list of texts--film, book,
art, photography, television... ANY texts) that
give you pleasure to explore.

Ok--so here are some prompts you are free to
use, adapt, warp, re-invent, reshape, mangle,
deconstruct, destruct, etc.  Though, between
you and me, I hope you use the last prompt
as that one has the most value!

Good luck!
PROMPTS

1.Can a novel be an experiment in torture?
a graphic comic be the equivalent of waterboarding?
Use Michael Almereyda's THE EXPERIMENTER and
produce a study of Steinbeck's OF MICE AND
MEN and Chris Ware's ACME NOVELTY WAREHOUSE that
contends that fiction is a form of torture.

2. Redefine the concept of the Naked Eye/I using
your own focus/vision/insight as you explore
the term with regard to any two works we have
explored this semester. Do feel free to focus
on works we have not gotten to yet in class.

3. There is always a sexual dimension implicit
in the word "naked." Explore the contours of
the word as it appears in any two or three
works we have read/watched/experience this semester.

4. Can a Painting talk to a Novel? A photograph
speak to a short story or essay? Compose an
essay that contrasts/compares a text this semester
that was written with one that is composed of
pictures--for instance, Melville vs. Ware; Hernandez
vs Yuknavitch. Ultimately your essay is a meditation
on the semantic and the semiotic conceived
simultaneously.  The thematic focus? That is
up to you.

5.Why is violence such a commonplace in works
that delve into the human psyche--need an example?
page through Ballard's work! Write an essay that is
focused on violence and psychology that makes use
of at least two works we have experienced this term.

6.Literature and Existentialism--bring yourself
up to speed by selecting/reading a key work from
the existentialist tradition: by Wittgenstein,
Nietzsche, Camus, or Sartre. Use that philosophical
text and fuse it somehow with a work we have
read in class this term.

7. Erotic dimensions of the Psyche--is the erotic
necessarily neurotic? Are neurotics erotic? Consider
the relationship between the erotic and the
psychological in any two works from the semester.

8. Literary Criticism/Film Criticism. Located
scholarly articles on any two the artists/writers we
have experienced this semester.  Make sure you LIKE
these articles. Write an essay that incorporates
the findings of these two scholars but make sure
to incorporate your own thesis in your essay.

9. Invent your own thesis focused on any works you
choose from our class plus any one work you want
to add in from another class or from your own
reading/screening/museum-going. Written proposal due
to me via email or in-class, typed, delivered
to me by Thursday, April 6, 2017.

Go have fun! I mean it!