Modernist City-Texts
COL 270
Spring 2020
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENGL 272 |
| Course Cluster: Urban Studies |
Since the 19th century, the city has been both a privileged and a problematic object of representation for narrative realism: privileged because urban spaces have increasingly been seen as shaping or producing the very social relations and individual experiences that realism wants to describe; problematic because the city itself, as a coherent totality that might explain those relations and experiences, is too vast, heterogeneous, and complex to be represented through the traditional techniques of realism.
This course will approach the problems and possibilities of the city for realism through a close reading of two large, ambitious texts that attempt to represent the city as a totality: James Joyce's novel ULYSSES (1922) and David Simon's television series THE WIRE (2002-2008). We will be particularly concerned with two techniques, pioneered by Joyce, for representing the city: stream of consciousness, which creates a tour of the city from the perspective of a single, mobile flâneur; and montage, which creates a map of the city by juxtaposing various cross-sections of social life or various institutions central to the city's functioning. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA COL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (COL)(ENGL)(ENGL-Literature) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
ULYSSES (The Gabler Edition), ISBN-13: 978-0394743127
ULYSSES ANNOTATED, ISBN-13: 978-0520253971
ULYSSES AND US, ISBN-13: 978-0393339093
THE WIRE (Students will need access to all five seasons of THE WIRE during the semester, in any format--DVD, downloaded files, online streaming,
etc.)
ON THE WIRE, ISBN-13: 978-0822357179
Also, a course pack will include secondary readings by Walter Benjamin, Michel de Certeau, William James, Fredric Jameson, Siegfried Kracauer, György Lukács, Victor Shklovsky, Georg Simmel, and others.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly reading responses (350-word maximum); term paper |
| Instructor(s): Fitzpatrick,Joseph J. Times: .....F. 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: BOGH113; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 8 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 9 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 0 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 2 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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