Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Contemporary Literature Syllabus


CCAD Mission Statement:
Columbus College of Art & Design prepares tomorrow's creative leaders for professional careers. With a history of commitment to fundamentals and quality, CCAD advances a distinct, challenging, and inclusive learning culture that supports individual development in art, design, and the humanities.
Course Information:
Faculty Information:

Catalog ID:    Section:    Term:  Fall 2012
496-01
Course Name:
Contemporary Literature
Course Prerequisite(s):

Meeting Day(s):    Meeting Time(s):
Tues. & Thurs. 2:00-3:20
Class Location:
Kinney Hall 208

Faculty Name:
Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis
Phone:

Email:
Skartsonis@ccad.edu
Office Hours:
Tuesday,Thursday: 11:00-12:30
Office Location:
Kinney 201



H 08/30  Introduction. Discussion of contemporary literatures. What makes a poem: This is Just to Say and The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

Week 09/04
T  09/04 WCM discussion continued.  Read bio. and the following poems (Asphodel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and  Spring and All) on this site. Also, to the left margin, there is a string of essays discussing the poet and the period. Look to those for some ways to discuss and write about these issues. As we discussed in class, Imagism plays a part in Williams' treatment of subjects. We will talk about that in class a bit, but feel free to review the essay on Imagism.

H 09/06 Robert Frost video (sentence sounds, formal poetry vs. free verse like tennis with the net down)

Week of 09/11
T  09/11 Introduction to Modernism. Ezra Pound. T.S. Eliot. Wallace Stevens.
Homework:  Readings:  Ezra Pound, bio and poems  T.S. Eliot bio and the following poems:
The Wasteland and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  They will likely feel a bit difficult, we'll discuss them in class, of course, but I will want you to read them first.
Also, really consider attending this. This is one of those incredible artists

Aurora Robson
multimedia artist  Wednesday, Sept. 12, 7 p.m.  Canzani Center Auditorium 
Aurora Robson is a multimedia artist known for her transformative use of plastic debris, excess packaging, and junk mail as artmaking material. A Canadian, Robson has lived and worked in New York City for the past 21 years. As a “subtle yet determined environmental activist” and advocate for plastic pollution awareness, she has exhibited all over the United States and Europe and is the founding artist of Project Vortex, an international collective of artists, designers and architects who also work with plastic debris. Her exhibition Sacrifice + Bliss is at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens from Sept. 9-April 28.
Visit her website, http://aurorarobson.com/
This program is free and open to the public. If you would like to support programs like this, please donate any amount online (choose the "exhibitions and visiting artists & scholars" option).

H 09/13 Readings discussed.
Homework:  Your first assignment will involve an imitation piece  or series (500 word minimum) of the Modernists. The work can be in a variety of forms (essay, poetry, formal, etc.) as long as it meets the word count.   One way to tackle this might be to write a poem by the light of one of these pieces and then to write a short letter or essay piece that describes your process: how you worked from the imitation and how you worked away from or against it.   It will be due a week from today (09/20)
Read Wallace Stevens, bio. and all poems.  He might be very helpful for your imitations so read him early.
Week of 09/18
T 09/18 Wallace Stevens.



Week of 09/18
T 09/18 Wallace Stevens.
H 09/20 Discussion and turn in of your Modernist pieces.

Homework:  Read the following sections in this link for The Fountainhead: Plot overview, context and themes and motifs.  http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/fountainhead/context.html
As well as the essay Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  These readings will relate to two of our visitors: Todd Slaughter’s American Primitives show on Sept. 27 and author, Benjamin Anastas’ reading on Friday, Oct. 19th. Please plan to attend both.

Week of 09/25
T 09/25  Discussion: Emerson’s Self-Reliance

Todd Slaughter: American Primitives       Sept. 27–Nov. 8, 2012  Opening Reception: Sept. 27, 6–9 p.m.    Canzani Center Gallery    Free & Open to the Public

Over the last 12 years Todd Slaughter’s artwork has addressed the perception that safety is synonymous with isolation and privilege in the gated communities of suburbia and urban high-rises. This specific aspect of American identity is but one point on a trajectory that, in the end, lands in the darkest of places. Through a series of sculptural tableaux, American Primitives points out parallels between the American individualism defined by Thoreau and Emerson and its evil twin, isolationist groups who feel that they, too, are manifesting core American values.
Slaughter is a former CCAD faculty member who is currently a professor at Ohio State University. His work has been given a major retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center, as well as exhibitions in numerous galleries and museums. Permanent public works can be found in the Midway Airport, Chicago, and Tarifa/Algeciras, Spain.
 H 09/27   
Homework:  (Due 10/16) Using the writings of Emerson. Write a letter to the editor of an imaginary newspaper as an invented character responding to the work directly or the way the notions behind it or Rand (or I can even allow for Thoreau, if you’d like) are working for or against “you” (as your character). We’ll flesh out this idea more in class, but plan on a 500 word minimum where your “character” tells a bit about him/herself and how the ideas in one of those works or in other more recent writings have impacted him/her.  If you’re using another speech or text, make sure you provide the original or a source for it. Then, you will be inventing a second character, one with a very different or contrasting, even opposing viewpoint, to respond to your original character. (250 words or more) Have fun with this. Name your newspaper, your town, really try to imagine these lives. For inspiration, consider Lynch’s  Interview Project:  http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/www/#/route

Week of 10/02

T 10/02  Formal Poetry:  Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Robert Hayden
Homework: Readings: Frost, Hughes, Bishop, Moore.
 Look over these forms:  sestina, sonnet, and villanelle, and begin to decide which you will imitate (and discuss in a 300 word minimum formal letter to your readers).  We will look over some examples for both components of this assignment: due 10/11.
Read:  Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Cathedral by Raymond Carver. (Walker to be discussed Thurs. and Carver a week from today.

H10/04  Discussion Walker

Week of 10/09
T 10/09  Discussion Carver
Homework:  Read William Harrison’s Present Tense Africa from your Touchstone Anthology p.220
H10/11  Discussion Harrison.  Formal poems due today.

Week of 10/16
T 10/16   Letters to the Editor Due.
(Review Emerson, if need be.)

H 10/18  Discussion Anastas, etc.
Visiting artist/author:
Benjamin Anastas   author  Friday, Oct. 19, 6:30 p.m.    Canzani Center Auditorium   Benjamin Anastas is the author of two highly regarded novels, and his memoir,Too Good to Be True, will be published in fall 2012. His short fiction has been published in The Paris Review, The Yale Review, and GQ, while his criticism and essays have appeared regularly in Bookforum, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, and The New York Observer. Anastas’ essay "The Foul Reign of Emerson's 'Self-Reliance,'" first published in The New York Times Magazine, appears in the exhibition catalog for American Primitives and will be included inThe Best American Essays 2012. 
Week of 10/23
T 10/23  NY School Readings. 
H 10/25  Discussion
Homework: Charles Bukowski readings

At your leisure:
http://bukowski.net/poems/

Week of 10/30
T 10/30  NY School discussion, Bukowski.
Homework:  Eula Bliss The Pain Scale (p. 2, Touchstone)
H 11/01 Discussion: The Lyric Essay through Bliss’ essay.
Homework:  Selected readings: Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell.

T 11/06   The Confessionalists
H 11/08  Discussion continued
Homework:  Reading: Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, Michael Cunningham’s White Angel,
Poetry Comics article,
**Your ekphrastic pieces and process papers (500 words minimum) are due on Tuesday 11/20. 
The short version of this assignment is that you will be responding or imitating a piece of literature through visual art. Examples abound: W.H. Auden’s Musee de Beaux Art or WCW’s Icarus (myth-painting-poem).  Or Charles Simic’s poems that respond to Joseph Cornell’s boxes (for the reverse).  Consider the poetry poem:  http://www.tcj.com/a-bianca-stone-interview/

Week of 11/13
T  11/13  TBA   I will be giving a reading at Florida Southern College (and representing CCAD)  Your class plans are forthcoming.
H 11/15   TBA

Week of 11/20
T 11/20  Discussion. Ekphrastic pieces to be presented. Process papers (only) to be turned in to me.

H 11/22   THANKSGIVING BREAK!  Safe travels and happy Thanksgiving!


Week of 11/27
T  11/27  Group Presentations of Essays from Touchstone Anthology. (There will be an oral and written component for each group member. More details forthcoming.)
H  11/29  Group Presentations continued

T 12/03  Group Presentations
H 12/05  TBA

T12/10    “”
H 12/12 Last day of semester.

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