Reading Web Comics

[Note: Much of this information is taken from Scott McCloud’s wonderful book Understanding Comics.]

First: What are comics?

Global Lit Assignments: Nov 27 - Dec 7

Tuesday-Thursday November 27 and 29: Movie, Wadjda. We'll be watching it in class.

Tuesday December 5: Read/View the following graphic stories/comics:

Anu, by Emily Carroll

His Face All Red, Emily Carroll

Darkness, Bouletcorp

“Bongcheon-Dong Ghost” by Horang (This one is seriously scary!  Feel free to skip it if you think it might be too much for you.)

Ghost in Masung Tunnel, by Horang

Thursday December 7: Final Exam, 2:45 p.m. In the classroom. For those of you writing the paper, the paper is due by this point as well, though you should feel free to email it to me at Kelly.Jennings@uafs.edu

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, “Wedding at the Cross”

In “Wedding at the Cross,” Ngugi, who himself comes from a colonized country (Kenya, colonized by the British, among others), writes about a young man and a young woman, Wariuki and Miriamu.

Colonialism / Post-Colonialism

A definition of colonialism (From this site: Literary Terms and Definitions.) 

Leslie Marmon Silko, “Yellow Woman”

This is a post-modern as well as a post-colonial story. That is to say, it mixes both Western and Native American traditions, ancient and modern world views, as well as placing a tale of a colonized culture into a Post-colonial world.

Global Lit Assignment November 21 - Dec 5

Tuesday November 21: “Yellow Woman,” 1684-1690; “Wedding at the Cross,” 1692 -1702

Tuesday-Thursday November 27 and 29: Movie, Wadja. We'll be watching it in class.

Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett / The Absurd

The Absurd is a particular subset of Modernist writing. 

Absurdist writers, feeling that the world is incapable of being deciphered or comprehended, try to cause in their audience or readers the pointlessness and confusion they believe everyone should feel upon recognizing the absurd nature of existence. 

Modernism

The Modernist Era begins around 1914 and ends around 1950.  Main influences include

Kafka

Kafka, “The Hunger Artist”

Franz Kafka (who was highly influenced by Freud and said so in his journals) wrote in a style known (now) as Magical Realism.  

Global Lit: Blake, Tennyson, Browning

William Blake

William Blake is an early Romantic poet.

Romantics

Romantics  are reacting to the Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and England – you’ll remember that the Enlightenment were those 18^th Century philosophers and scholars who believe, more or less, in the power of human reason to fix the world; who believe, that is,

Alexander Pope, Essay on Man

Alexander Pope: Essay on Man (1733-744)

Though it was written during the Enlightenment, Alexander Pope’s attempt to address the imperfect state of the world is in its essence not an Enlightenment work.

The Enlightenment is a period which runs (broadly speaking) from somewhere around 1650 to somewhere around 1800 in Europe, England, and America. It is characterized by writers, philosophers, and political activists (such as – for instance – Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin) who reject traditional ways of thinking about knowledge, authority, religion, literature, and the social order.  Voltaire is one of the main figures in the Enlightenment, and everyone recognized his influence even at the time.

ENGL 2013: Tang Poetry

Tang Poetry: 600-900AD

The Tang Dynasty a period of great wealth and cultural advancement in China. During this period, Chinese poetry reached new heights.

ENGL 2013: Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism follows the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who lived in India sometime around 500 BCE.  The principle philosophy of Buddha may be summed up as this: All suffering arises from desire; to end suffering, we must, rather than seeking to fulfill our desires, seek to stop desiring; we can stop desiring by recognizing that what we desire is illusion; we can realize this by following the eightfold path.

ENGL 2013: Taoism

Taoism

Tao means, literally, the Way – a common concept in Eastern thought.  In Taoism, the Way of the Universe is flow: the universe is always in motion.  The only thing that always is, Lao Tsu (who is the creator of Tao Te Ching) tells is, is change. 

Ci or T’zu: Compassion.  One of the Three Jewels of Taoist Ethics.  Also translates as love or kindness.  It is the virtue of doing/loving/feeling for others as you would do/love/feel for yourself.

Marie de France

Marie de France

Marie wrote in Norman French, and almost certainly lived in England during the 12^th Century.

New Testament Selections

Luke

Luke is probably written fairly late -- estimated dates of composition range from 80 to mid-first century; it may, however, be even later, into the second century, which would make it the latest written of all the gospels. 

ENGL 2013: The Analects

Confucius, The Analects

Confucius, like Plato and Socrates, was a real person. He lived in the 6^th Century BC, more or less from 550-470 BC, in NE China. This was just after the Zhou Dynasty collapsed into the Warring States period. Confucius lived, in other words, in interesting (which is to say, unstable) times.

Chinese Poetry

As we will note when we reach Confucius and The Analects, poetry has enormous influence in Chinese culture: particularly, a body of work known as The Classic of Chinese Poetry.

ENGL 2013: The Bhagavad-Gita

Bhagavad-Gita

The Bhagavad-Gita is a very small part of the immense Hindu epic the Mahabharata. (Basically an epic about a war of succession between two inter-related royal families in India.)

ENGL 2013: Plato, The Symposium

Plato, The Symposium

A little background: Plato is a student of Socrates – one of the main speakers here. In all of the dialogues Plato wrote, he uses Socrates as his main speaker.