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SPRING 2014 | ENGLISH 220 (SECTIONS 3 THRU 10) MAIN LECTURE, MONDAY AND WEDNESDAY @ 11AM in PETERSON GYM (PG) 153

Dr. William A. Nericcio with his able non-robot TAs Michael Edmiston and others TBA

 

 

Make no mistake about it: this is NOT a survey of long, white-haired, sedate, upper-crust, high literature--we will be as obsessed with film, photography, and the internet, as we will the trappings of traditional literature.  More an introduction to Cultural Studies than a long-in-the-tooth worship festival of the old classics (sorry Shakespeare, get-out th'way Milton, adios Edmund Spenser), our multi-media exercise in fictional fetishism will try to set itself apart with vivacious books, paintings, and film filled with tortured, naked, broken imaginations.

We will be eccentric—ex-centric, outside the circle—as we explore the world of alternative subjectivities, "televisual" constructions (think Facebook) where individuals make and remake themselves on a daily basis.  The robotic electric will drive our curious thirst as we try to understand why our species creates versions of itself that it then re-markets (to itself) in various media: books, film, photography, the web, etc.  It turns out that the seductive fantasies, grotesque nightmares, and alluring hallucinations that our creative writers, directors, photographers, artists, philosophers make—shamans of fiction, all—form a key part of what we call our psyche: the psychology or soul that passes for the person you tell people you are. Various folks will help us on our way: Franz Kafka, that dark closeted hallucinator whose bizarre imagination rewrites the course of 20th century literature; Robert Crumb the graphic artist and novelist, whose version of Kafka reveals the nightmare world of a literary superstar with cunning new insight and vicious wit;  there are others, as the final lineup still in flux. One last thing! I promise this class will do more for knowledge of reading, writing, and literature than this one!

 

nota bene: though this is an English 220 class, upper-division folks and graduate students who are crazy about literature, film, and visual culture can take the class as a Engl 499 Special Study course or an English or MALAS (Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences) 798 Special Study.  Email me at bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu for more info!