ENGL 475: Postmodern Literature (Fall 2004)

Underworld (First Thread)

Opening commentary on Underworld?

The stadium and the desert; baseball and the bomb; crowds and ghosts; then and now; black and white; Cotter, Klara Sax, and Nick; Jedgar, Jackie, Frank, and Toots; Breughel and the B-52s; junk and waste and paint and paper . . .

Here, by the way, is a link to what's probably the best Delillo site on the Web. See especially this excellent series of illustrated pages on the major people, events, and historical references in the novel.

Reading at Risk? A Panel Discussion

An event I've organized--mark your calendars!

READING AT RISK? A PANEL DISCUSSION

Released in July of this year, the National Endowment for the Arts' "Reading at Risk" report garnered widespread attention for its dramatic and troubling findings, chief among which were that there has been a documented 10% national decline in "literary reading" since 1982, with the drop-off even more precipitous among younger age groups. (The report is available in its entirety online at: http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf). These findings are surely of concern to anyone who cares about the future of reading and a literate populace. But what *is* reading in the current day and age? What can we learn from the history of media change, where previous moments of technological transition have been accompanied by similar expressions of anxiety and concern? Or are we truly facing an uprecedented shift in what and how and why we read? What are the implications for education? The arts? Public policy and civics? Join us on Thursday, November 18th, 2:00-3:45, in the McKeldin Special Events Room for a discussion of this issue, featuring a number of distinguished speakers from the College Park campus and beyond:

MARK BAUERLEIN, Director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also Professor of English at Emory University. He has written many books and articles on American literature, history, and philosophy, and his commentaries and reviews have appeared in Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, TLS, Yale Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other national periodicals.

MICHAEL COLLIER, Professor of English and Co-Director of Creative Writing at UMCP, and former Poet Laureate of the State of Maryland. Professor Collier is the author of several books and collections, and over 100 published poems.

LISA GITELMAN, Associate Professor of English and Director of Media Studies at Catholic University. Professor Gitleman is the author of Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines (Stanford UP, 1999) and co-editor of New Media 1740-1915 (MIT Press, 2003).

SHIRLEY LOGAN, Professor of English at UMCP and former Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (the 4Cs). She is the author of "We Are Coming": The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women (Southern Illinois, 1999) and co-editor of many other books.

CLIFFORD LYNCH, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information. He is a past president of the American Society for Information Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization.

NICK MONTFORT, co-editor of the New Media Reader (MIT Press, 2003) and author of Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interfactive Fiction (MIT Press, 2004). Currently a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, Montfort is also a highly-regarded writer of interactive fiction.

The panel will be moderated by MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM, Assistant Professor of English at UMCP. It is intended to be of broad topical interest to a diverse and interdisciplinary audience. Free and open to the public; entire classes welcome.

Sponsored by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) and the Department of English. Please contact Matt Kirschenbaum (mgk "at" umd "dot" edu) with questions.

Art of Participation

Something I'm recommending to all my classes:

Please read this excellent handout on the Art of [Class] Participation.

Down Below

Thoughts on Notley's Descent of Alette? Any continuties with City of Glass?

Flash: Art Spiegelman at Politics and Prose

Spiegelman will discuss and sign copies of In the Shadow of No Towers Tuesday, September 21, 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose bookstore here in town.

The Red Notebook

Thoughts on the end of the novel?

The Legible City

The Wittgenstein quotation I read in class yesterday:

Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.

Recall too the epigraph from Calvino's Invisible Cities on the syllabus:

The city . . . does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightening rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.

Finally, see Legible City, a classic electronic art installation by Jeffrey Shaw.

Opened Topic

Given the nature of the course I wanted to open a topic today, this day. Feel free to post what you like, so long as it's within the bounds of respect and human generosity.

Wrong Number?

The floor is now open for discussion of City of Glass. First impressions anyone? (No spoliers yet, please.)

Room Change

I've gotten our classroom changed to Susquehanna 1117 (down the hall and around the corner), which is a bigger room. Please go to 1117 starting with our next class, on Wednesday.

The Desert of the Real

The floor is now open for discussion, questions, and comments.