HUMANITIES 581 - KEY PERIODS AND MOVEMENTS, PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY AND POSTMODERNISM.
[Schedule of Readings] [Written Assignments]
Assignments
Each assignment is due in the instructor's mailbox during the week indicated below. Count Week I as the first week that classes begin and Week XVI as the week grades are turned in. Trimester dates are listed at the upper left hand corner of your registration form.
All work will be graded and returned to you. Be sure to make three (3) copies
and send us two; you keep one. We keep one on file (please mark one copy as
"For HUX Files"), and the third will be mailed back to you with comments and
a grade. Your papers should be typed, double-spaced, with specific references
to your assigned readings (for example, McWilliams, p.20-25); they should also
be date mailed. Be sure to always include a self-addressed stamped envelope
for the return of your paper. Footnotes or endnotes are desirable,
although your references may be placed in the body of the paper in parenthesis.
Details on requirements for each assignment can be found in the respective sections.
Consult the Table of Contents for page numbers.
NOTE:
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MODES OF ASSESMENT:
Three writing assignments of 4 - 6 pages each. One 12 - 15 page research paper.
SCHEDULE OF READINGS:
Weeks 1 and 2.
Topic - Sorting out the key ideas: Modern Modernity, Modernism, Postmodern,
Postmodernity and Postmodernism.
Read: course syllabus.
Read: Belsey's Preface, Ch. 1 and the Glossary in Postmodern
Debate.
Read: Ch.1 of Beginning Postmodernism.
Weeks 3 to 5.
Topic - Reading Lyotard: the Terms of the Engagement.
Read: Ch. 2 of Woods' Beginning Postmodernism.
Read: Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition through p. 67.
Read: Jameson's Forward after you have read the Lyotard book.
Read: Chs. 2 through 5 in Postmodern Debates.
Weeks 6 to 9.
Topic - More Debates and More General Cultural Expressions
of Postmodernism.
Read: Chs. 4 through 7 and 9 in Beginning Postmodernism
Read: Chs. 8 through 15 in Postmodern Debates
Weeks 10 to 12.
Topic - Postmodern Literature.
Read: Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler.
Read: Ch.3 of Beginning Postmodernism
Weeks 13 to 15.
Complete reading for research paper.
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS
These first three writing assignments are not research papers. For best results, stick to the texts used in the course.
End of Week 5:
Write a 4 - 6 page essay responding to the Following question:
Explicate Lyotard's analysis of the "postmodern condition in knowledge." Make
sure you explain the distinctions he Makes between kinds of knowledge, how language
functions in his thinking and what any of this has to do with "truth", "justice"
and "terror." In the course of your account, show what the issues and arguments
seem to be between Lyotard and Habermas. Use Lyotard's essays (chs.2 & 5
in Malpas), if you find them helpful.
End of Week 9:
Write a 4 - 6 page essay on ONE of the following questions:
A. Compare and contrast the essays by Jameson, Eagleton, Rorty
and Laclau in order to discuss the meaning and importance of "the political"
within postmodern debates.
B. Compare and contrast the essays by Hutcheon, Butler and
Jardine in order to discuss the meaning and importance of gender and identity
within postmodern debates.
C. Compare and contrast the essays by hooks and Bhabha in
order to discuss the meaning and importance of the
postcolonial within postmodern debates.
D. Using Beginning Postmodernism, discuss the stylistic characteristics
and cultural issues involved in postmodern
architecture, the visual arts, music and mass media.
End of Week 12:
Write a 4 - 6 page essay on the following question:
Show how Calvino's novel embodies some of the "key characteristics of postmodern fiction" as listed on pp.65-66 of Beginning Postmodernism.Does Calvino make use gender, identity or more general political issues. Did you like this novel?
End of Week 15:
Research paper due.