Schedule

CW= on our class website on coursework.stanford.edu

TBA= to be announced (most recent readings and assignment updates are always under the “Schedule” tab on our class blog)

 

WEEK 1

 

Monday, 3/30             Introduction to course;  Michael Field, “A Pen-Drawing of Leda”

 

Wednesday, 4/1

Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (short story, distributed as class handout and email); Chris Jenks, “Whither Transgression?” (CW—brief article); Julian Wolfreys, “Introduction: Transgressions or, Beyond the Obvious” (CW—brief article)

 

WEEK 2

 

Sign up for presentation topics/texts in the second week of class (you can send me email with two or three preferred topics/texts or sign up on the sheet we’ll be circulating in class). Your chosen text must have some important connection to our class topic, Literature and Transgression (which you’ll need to justify). I will have some suggestions of extracurricular texts for you to choose from in case you have trouble coming up with your own.

 

Monday, 4/6               Oscar Wilde, Salomé (CW), read whole play

Optional reading: Dierkes-Thrun, ch.1 from Salome’s Modernity: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetics of Transgression (CW)

 

Wednesday, 4/8          Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (CW); “In The Penal Colony” (CW)

 

WEEK 3

 

Monday, 4/13             F.T. Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto (CW); Mina Loy, Feminist Manifesto (CW)

Wednesday, 4/15        Gertrude Stein, “Composition as Explanation” and excerpts from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (CW)

  

WEEK 4

 

Monday, 4/20             Georges Bataille, “Madame Edwarda” (CW)

Anna Katharina Schaffer, Modernism and Perversion, selected excerpts on Bataille (CW)

 

Wednesday, 4/22          Michel Foucault, “A Preface to Transgression” (CW)

 

 

WEEK 5

 

Monday, 4/27             James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Part I; Tim Dean, “The erotics of transgression” (CW)

 

 

Wednesday, 4/29        James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Part II

 

 

WEEK 6

 

Monday, 5/4               Excerpts from Art Spiegelman, Maus (CW)

Paul Celan, “Death Fugue”

Adorno, excerpts from “Cultural Criticism and Society” (CW)

 

Wednesday, 5/6         Flannery O’Connor, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”; A Good Man Is Hard To Find”  (CW)

Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal” (CW)

 

Wikipedia editing assignment due before Sunday, May 10, midnight. See class handout for details.

 

WEEK 7

 

Monday, 5/11             Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita: read the Foreword and Part 1 (Part 1 is pp. 9-142), plus Notes in the back as needed–try to read ahead into Part 2 so there’s enough time to finish the novel by Wednesday! The Notes start on p. 319 of our edition.

 

Wednesday, 5/13        Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (finish the novel for today)

 

 

WEEK 8                     

 

Monday, 5/18             Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”. Please LISTEN to Ginsberg reading this long poem (parts 1, 2, plus Footnote to Howl). All links and reading/listening questions you need are here.

 

Wednesday, 5/20        Samuel Delany, excerpts from Hogg (CW); also read this interview with Samuel Delaney 

WEEK 9

 

Monday, 5/25             MEMORIAL DAY—NO CLASS

 

Wednesday, 5/27        Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

 

WEEK 10

 

Monday, 6/1               Open topic—work on your final projects; optional meetings with me. Final paper/project outlines due today.

 

Wednesday, 6/3          Informal class conference (discuss your final paper idea, get feedback from class) and celebration

 

FINALS WEEK

 

Final papers/projects due on or before Wednesday, 6/10, by 12 noon, via email to pdthrun@stanford.edu. You may post your final paper on our blog as well if you like. Best of luck!