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| An Introduction to the Study of
Literature, Film, Photography, Comics, and Streaming Media |
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| William Nericcio, Professor, English and Comparative Literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 he title of this
class is, of course, a tease—a titillating excuse for
you to take a General Education class in Literature
and Cultural Studies, as opposed to, say, an online
class on tetherball, or god knows whatever else is
passing for a GE at SDSU these days. In our English
220: Introduction to Literature class we will read
books, and write about them--and our focus is all
things naked, sexy, and bestial!
But that does not
mean we will be altogether pornographic. Instead, we
will focus on diverse and exciting stories that are
written (novels), screened (television and film),
drawn (graphic narrative/comics), and shot
(photography) that reveal humanity at its most
beastly, most naked, most sexy.Take the word “naked,” for instance. Of course it means to be "without clothes," a state we associate with the “sexual,” but “naked” also means “[h]aving no defence or protection; open or exposed to assault or injury; vulnerable” and, as well, “[d]estitute of means; without resources” (thanks Oxford English Dictionary).  The same goes for the term “Beast."
At first glance, the word might, at first conjure up
images of vampires and werewolves—of all kinds of human
and inhuman monsters, but there are all kinds of strange
beasts, ostensibly "human" men, women, and others whose
complexities break down what we might assume to be the
difference between human and animal.So our mad dash through 16 weeks of beastly, sexy, naked humans will be an adventure—the lineup of movies and books and comics is still in flux but for sure we will be reading The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (Broadview Press edition); Mean, by Myriam Gurba; and others noted below!  We will also have
in-class movie screenings--these cinematic required
texts include Sorry to Bother You by Boots
Riley; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
by Steven Shainberg; and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy
Beast (from which this class stole its name!).  Other likely figures on the
syllabus are Diane Arbus, Frida Kahlo, Remedios
Varo, Francesca Woodman, Ana Mendieta and more.
The class is open to all majors; graduate students and advanced undergraduates who want to take the class for upper-division or graduate credit should come see me after the first class.  |
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Required
Books or "The Tasty Twelve"
  Note: NO DIGITAL BOOKS ALLOWED--all
students must bring their delicious literary
jewels made of paper, ink, and glue to our
imagination laboratory / classroom for class
discussion! Also--note that the book links provided below are included to ensure you pick up the correct edition of the required books, NOT to make Jeff Bezos more money at Amazon. All the correct editions are available from Aztec Shops Bookstore--and do beware bargains you may stumble across as the pagination may be different in older editions and you won't be able to follow along during class discussions.*  Are used
books ok? Of course they are--but beware the
notes and scrawls you find in these discarded
receptacles of knowledge (not to mention the
sneeze remnants lurking within their pages!!!*Unlike other un-named classes here at SDSU, you actually have to read the books each week for the class to have any meaning at all.
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| Day to Day Assignment
Calendar |
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  his is a
university-level course in literature, film, art,
and the internet--as it is thematically focused on
issues of representation, subjectivity, psychology,
and sexuality, it should not come as a shock that
students in the class may, from time to time,
encounter characters, ideas, situations, images, and
scenarios that make them uneasy. WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY!  The antithesis of a place
of worship, the flipside of a space dedicated to
faith and belief, the university is a site of
questioning--a sacred space of critical thinking,
skepticism, cynicism and irony. So open your eyes, jump-start your mind, and prepare to enter the choppy corridors of the always already evolving and morphing dimensions of the human psyche!  |
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| ¡rulez! A Description of How Your Work Will Be Evaluated in #nakedsexybeasts  This section of your online syllabus documents how your work will be evaluated Fall 2019. Here you will find all the little gates, cages, locks, statutes, ordinances, edicts, and formulas that allow our innovative nakedsexybeast-obsessed literary collective to thrive. Let me underscore that you have absolute intellectual freedom in our seminar, BUT to receive these awesome rights, you must also follow the reasonable responsibilities outlined on this part of your syllabus. After all, we want to have a great time, to be the best literature/cultural studies class on the West Coast, even! Take that USC! Eat my dust Stanford! But to do that, we need room for intellectual play--a safe asylum within which to forge our beast-laced, literature-filled wanderlust. So, then, read these laws carefully and thoroughly, so when you walk into GMCS 333, aka, the Den of Beasts, aka the #NakedSexyBeasts Mothership, you will know what to do and what not to do! OFFICE HOURS
You are
warmly invited to visit me in office hours at least
once during the semester if you can. At SDSU, it's
easy to fall through the cracks, to feel that you are
nothing but a Red ID# or some warm pile of sentient
flesh filling a seat. In order to convince you that the Professor
teaching you is occasionally human, please make
a point during the semester to take the time to
introduce yourself in person. Updated!
My
office hours will be on Wednesday afternoons from
1pm to 3:45 in AL 273 (you are welcome to walk back
with me after class from the Den of Beasts, GMCS
333, to AL 273; also, if you arrive and I am not
there, look for me in the SDSU Press
office, AL 283). If these hours are inconvenient, do not hesitate to email me for an appointment either at memo@sdsu.edu or bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu You can also call me at 619.594.1524 either to schedule an appointment or discuss your questions via telephone, but keep in mind I don't check my medieval office landline very often!PASSPORT
RULE 1 BOOKS_BOOKS_BOOKS BUY THE BOOKS AND READ
THEM--DON'T COME TO SEMINAR WITHOUT YOUR BOOK! Though we very much adore
living in the 21st century, we will use ANALOG,
printed books in this class. Please do not
come up and ask me if you can use a Kindle or your
laptop or your Smartphone--see rules 3 and 4
below.
PASSPORT RULE 2 READ_READ_READ! When you enter
this room for class you will have completed the reading that appears
on the day-to-day class calendar! Please note the
word "finished" (not "started," not "skimmed," not
"glanced," and most decidedly NOT "I read the
Cliffs/Sparks Notes online!) Coming to a
university literature/film/cultural studies class without doing the
reading is like a gardener trying to raise roses
without getting her/his hands filthy with shit, a
surgeon trying to operate without a scalpel, a fireman
without her/his ax, a prostitute without, er, well, I
better stop there. Do the readings.
Do them twice if
you can MAKE the time! I know, you are
saying to yourself, "they don't make me read in my
other classes" or some other sort of nonsense... well
here, you must! 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.
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 or god knows what. I was
recently at a cool (ok, it was slightly boring, I
confess) lecture by a noted writer--as I tried to
listen to her, in front of me, a diverted student
(attending the lecture, no doubt, for extra-credit)
was perusing sites like these
(nsfw or school). So, laptops are GREAT for
entering your notes AFTER class, but they will not
be allowed in our lecture hall. If
you have an issue with this, schedule a meeting
with me during office hours to chat the first week
of class. THE SMARTPHONE!
PASSPORT RULE 5 Charlie-Delta_Thief
In the university, plagiarism refers to the art and crime of presenting other people's work under your own signature, aka cutting and pasting copied crap from Wikipedia--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. Read THIS as well--SDSU is SERIOUS about this shit, so don't take any chances! Rely on your own singular mind and imagination! Major Course Requirements
QUIZZES, ATTENDANCE, and cineTREKS©...
Missing class, you
miss, as well, the whole point of the adventure. So please bypass
no more than three classes during the semester--you
are responsible for any work/notes you miss when you
are absent and can PRESUME
that what you missed that day was important! If you 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," etc. etc. Ditching
this class too often will be as fun as a case of
flesh-eating virus. During the semester, you can
expect several In-class Panic-Inducing Challenges
otherwise known as CHECK-YOU-DID-THE-READING 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 student, we will enjoy FEW if any
quizzes during our semester. Also
to be expected? cineTREKS™! What are cineTREKS™? These are extra-curricular activities--some on campus, others in the greater San Diego area that are related to our adventures in class. Do you receive any second chances in this class on the off chance you miss a quiz, blow an assignment, or generally screwup altogether? Luckily, your eccentric Professor is a recovering Catholic, and believes in the wonders of absolution--from time to time we will have out-of-class cineTREK© assignments, aka EXTRA-CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES; these can be used to atone for an extra-absence, a missed quiz, or some other class-impacting catastrophe you may experience during the term. DIGITAL/VIRTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS (Voluntary NOT Mandatory)
What are you expected to share via social media? Things you run across that relate to our class experiences--you do not HAVE TO WRITE a long essay with your postings... a couple of pointed, pithy, well-crafted sentences will do, enough to give me and your classmates a sense of a connection to ideas developed during the semester in our class. BEASTLY IMAGINATION CHALLENGE
You will be
asked to write ONE 5-8 page essay (also
know as THE BEASTLY IMAGINATION CHALLENGE)
during the course of the term. Please note that
you will never be compelled to write about
something you absolutely hate. Though I will
provide you with a list of prompts, please feel
free to see me at any time over the course of
the semester during office hours to
pitch/brainstorm essay ideas. FINAL EXAMINATION
There will be a final In-class Imagination Challenge (aka, the FINAL EXAM) on the last regularly scheduled day of class: Tuesday, December 10 at 11am in GMCS 333. Your final is absolutely 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 In-Class Imagination Challenge as enjoyable as being the waiter for the Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo clan! |
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TAs, Research Associate, Pedagogy Intern, & Professor Biographies Note: Though you are a member of a particular group, you are free, welcome, and encouraged to reach out to any of us during the semester.  KRYSTAL
GALVIS, leader of the mighty... SUPER BEASTS Krystal Galvis is a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program in the Department of English and Comparative Literature where she specializes in writing fiction. She received her BA in English at SDSU (2017), and is a writer fascinated by magic, fantasy, and darkness. An avid reader, Galvis believes a book and a poem can change a person’s life.  She
is currently working on her manuscript thesis that
focuses on immigration, borders, and identity in a
contemporary fantasy genre. Her
published work appears in Feminine
Collective Literary Magazine. She is also one of
the founding editors of a literary journal called The Dahlia Review
and interviews authors/publishers, writes reviews about
books and literary events.email: kgalvis AT sdsu DOT edu Office hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 1:30 pm to 2:30pm Where? --> in AL 260 (aka, the MFA Resource Room) |
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 DAVID ORNELAS,
head beast for the...NUDE AVENGERS Hello, my name is David
Ornelas and I’m a first year graduate student in the
infamous MALAS degree program--the Master of Arts in Liberal
Arts and Sciences! I received my Bachelor’s
degree at SDSU in May 2017 from the Rhetoric Writing
Studies program. My passion is writing but I’ve found
a new love in literature after taking Dr. Nericcio’s
ENG220 course back in Fall 2018. email : dpoj5 AT yahoo DOT com |
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 WILLIAM
NERICCIO, chief guru for the...SEXY BRAINS The Director of MALAS, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences, an interdisciplinary studies program at SDSU, Dr. William Nericcio also serves as Professor of English and Comparative Literature and serves on the faculties of the Department of Chicana/o Studies & the Center for Latin American Studies at San Diego State University. Nericcio's first book, Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of "Mexicans" in America, appeared with the University of Texas Press in February, 2007.  His
next book, an edited anthology of playwright Oliver
Mayer's early works entitled The Hurt Business
appeared in April of 2008 and his follow-up to that, Homer from Salinas: John
Steinbeck's Enduring Voice for California
appeared in March, 2009. Other noteworthy essays by
Nericcio include his lurid meditations on the life of
Pee-wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens) in The Iowa
Journal of Cultural Studies and an illustrated survey of
the cool graphic narrative Mestizo stylings of Gilbert
Hernandez and his spiritual godmother, Frida Kahlo, for
NYU Press's Latino Popular Culture.
Nericcio's long-awaited
meditation on American visual culture, Eyegiene: Permutations of
Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race,
is in preparation with UT Press, while his new book,
with Frederick Luis Aldama, Talking #brownTV:
Latinas and Latinos on the Screen, will
appear Christmas 2019 with The
Ohio State University Press.email : memo AT sdsu DOT or ... bnericci
AT sdsu DOT edu
SEXY BRAINS
email address: amcschulz AT gmail
DOT com |
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 SARA
SCHULKE, Head of State for...ANIMALS INC. Sara Schulke is in her second year of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, where she focuses on stories of the absurd or surreal within realistic settings, and occasionally young adult novels.  She
graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in
2018, where she worked on the only UC-wide
literary journal, Matchbox
Magazine, and hunted banana slugs.
Sara hopes to someday be in the editor's
chair at a major publishing house, but for
now she's happy to read submissions for Fiction
International, as long as she's taking
in new thoughts and perspectives through
literature.email: sschulke9773 AT sdsu DOT
edu |
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  ELLEN
LUSETTI, almighty grand poobah of the...Montrous Monsters Ellen Lusetti is a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, where she focuses on fiction and nonfiction, specializing in women’s literature, mystery, horror, memoir and personal essays. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Music degree (vocal emphasis), where she worked on the literary journal, Blue Mesa Review. Ellen currently reads for Fiction International and runs her own online makeup/skincare business. email: elusetti7100 AT sdsu DOT edu Office Hour: Thursdays 12:30pm in the MFA Resource Room, AL 260 |
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 Who has been visiting!? |
By
the time you walk in at 11am you will have started
to read FREUD FOR BEGINNERS by Oscar Zarate
(illustrator) and Richard Appignanesi (author) ...
Read the first 91 pages or so (don't freak! It's
mostly pictures by Zarate ... and, that said, be
sure to study the images carefully as much as you
read Appignanesi's words!) ...
Your beloved magnificent iPhone, your
cherished Galaxy, your fetishized Pixel, or even 
Yes, the trauma
of that delayed text, yes, the horror of that missed
hook-up call, yes, the loss of the buzz of that random
Tinder swipe will no doubt doom you to years and years
on an psychoanalyst's couch, but we, the rest of us,
will gain some silence, a kind of sanctuary without
which ideas wither on the vine. We are NOT joking
about this unthinkable edict! Don't end up like
this former student from another Engl 301 I taught
back in the day: 
I
am a third year student pursuing my
undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary
Studies in three Departments: Linguistics,
Television Film and Media, and English
& Comparative Literature. I am an
Editorial and Marketing Associate for the
