Friday, September 26, 2014
Readings from Around the Internet
Hello All,
This post will be an on-going list of readings from around the internet that have relevance for our discussions of The End of the World. Read these at your leisure and interest; you will not be tested on them for class
"The Stalkers: Inside the bizarre subculture that lives to explore Chernobyl’s Dead Zone" is about tourists and interested witnesses traveling to the Exclusion Zone surrounding the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.
"The Dystopian City and Urban Policy" argues how city planners can learn from depictions of dystopian cities in science fiction novels describing the end of the world.
"How to Raise Your Zombie Baby: An Illustrated Guide" is exactly what it sounds like.
"The ABCs of the Sudden Departure" is an illustrated ABC book tie-in with the HBO show "The Leftovers."
"The Ebola Story: How Our Minds Build Narratives out of Disaster" is about how our visions of reality has been shaped by the fictions that entertain and frighten us.
"How Will the Universe End" is a question-and-answer interview with a cosmologist about the end of the universe.
This post will be an on-going list of readings from around the internet that have relevance for our discussions of The End of the World. Read these at your leisure and interest; you will not be tested on them for class
"The Stalkers: Inside the bizarre subculture that lives to explore Chernobyl’s Dead Zone" is about tourists and interested witnesses traveling to the Exclusion Zone surrounding the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.
"The Dystopian City and Urban Policy" argues how city planners can learn from depictions of dystopian cities in science fiction novels describing the end of the world.
"How to Raise Your Zombie Baby: An Illustrated Guide" is exactly what it sounds like.
"The ABCs of the Sudden Departure" is an illustrated ABC book tie-in with the HBO show "The Leftovers."
"The Ebola Story: How Our Minds Build Narratives out of Disaster" is about how our visions of reality has been shaped by the fictions that entertain and frighten us.
"How Will the Universe End" is a question-and-answer interview with a cosmologist about the end of the universe.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
The Waste Carpet
Choose an example of a literary device at work in William Matthews's "The Waste Carpet." Do not repeat an example another student has already taken.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Yeats and the Sphinx
Hello All,
For this post, explain why Yeats makes an allusion to the sphinx in "The Second Coming." Pay close attention to these lines (but feel free to refer to any others you feel may be relevant):
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
For this post, explain why Yeats makes an allusion to the sphinx in "The Second Coming." Pay close attention to these lines (but feel free to refer to any others you feel may be relevant):
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
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Egyptian Sphinx |
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Greek Sphinx |
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Oedipus solving the riddle of the Sphinx |
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Post #2: Literary Devices
Hello All,
In the poems I gave you today, find and explain an example of one of the following:
Allusion
Symbol
Metaphor
Implied Metaphor
Simile
Synecdoche
Metonymy
Parallelism or Antithesis
Hyperbole or Meiosis
Have fun!
In the poems I gave you today, find and explain an example of one of the following:
Allusion
Symbol
Metaphor
Implied Metaphor
Simile
Synecdoche
Metonymy
Parallelism or Antithesis
Hyperbole or Meiosis
Have fun!
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Entry #1: Motion Poems
For this first entry (which we will discuss the first day of class, so be sure to post your response in the comments section below by the 15th), you need to complete two tasks.
1. Choose which ONE of the course selected books you will read, and write a brief note (one or two sentences) explaining your selection. The list is on the syllabus, but here it is again if you don't have it with you:
Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian (novel)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (novel)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (novel)
The Plague by Albert Camus (novel)
Blindness by Jose Saramago (novel)
Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (novel)
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (novel)
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (novel)
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut (novel)
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (novel)
Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis (nonfiction)
House of Rain by Craig Childs (nonfiction)
Collapse by Jared Diamond (nonfiction)
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (nonfiction)
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit (nonfiction)
The Disaster Diaries by Sam Sheridan (nonfiction)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (drama)
After the Apocalypse: Stories by Maureen McHugh (short fiction)
Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (short fiction)
One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin (short fiction / poetry)
The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic (poetry)
The Tales by Jessica Bozek (poetry)
Render: An Apocalypse by Rebecca Gayle Howell (poetry)
2. Watch the following Motionpoems (which are like film adaptations of poems), and choose your favorite. Write a brief note (one or two sentences) explaining your preference.
"Sea Salt" by David Mason, adapted by Amy Schmitt
"The Trees -- They Were Once Good Men" by Todd Boss, adapted by Emma Burghardt
"Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out" by K.A. Hays, adapted by Emma Burghardt
"Ecclesiastes 11:1" by Richard Wilbur, adapted by Faith Eskola
"Circles in the Sky" by Bob Hicok, adapted by Keri Moller
"Either Or" by Maxine Kumin, adapted by Adam Tow
1. Choose which ONE of the course selected books you will read, and write a brief note (one or two sentences) explaining your selection. The list is on the syllabus, but here it is again if you don't have it with you:
Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian (novel)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (novel)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead (novel)
The Plague by Albert Camus (novel)
Blindness by Jose Saramago (novel)
Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (novel)
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (novel)
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (novel)
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut (novel)
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (novel)
Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis (nonfiction)
House of Rain by Craig Childs (nonfiction)
Collapse by Jared Diamond (nonfiction)
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (nonfiction)
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit (nonfiction)
The Disaster Diaries by Sam Sheridan (nonfiction)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (drama)
After the Apocalypse: Stories by Maureen McHugh (short fiction)
Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (short fiction)
One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin (short fiction / poetry)
The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic (poetry)
The Tales by Jessica Bozek (poetry)
Render: An Apocalypse by Rebecca Gayle Howell (poetry)
2. Watch the following Motionpoems (which are like film adaptations of poems), and choose your favorite. Write a brief note (one or two sentences) explaining your preference.
"Sea Salt" by David Mason, adapted by Amy Schmitt
"The Trees -- They Were Once Good Men" by Todd Boss, adapted by Emma Burghardt
"Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out" by K.A. Hays, adapted by Emma Burghardt
"Ecclesiastes 11:1" by Richard Wilbur, adapted by Faith Eskola
"Circles in the Sky" by Bob Hicok, adapted by Keri Moller
"Either Or" by Maxine Kumin, adapted by Adam Tow
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