English 4384-02W: Senior Seminar (Tuesday 5:30-8, Pafford 309)

 

“This Is the Way the World Ends”: Representating the Apocalypse in Literature and Film

 

 

Dr. Joshua Masters, TLC 2244

Phone: 678-839-4862

Email:  jmasters@westga.edu and mastersjosh@yahoo.com

Office Hours: Mon 1-5, Tues 1-5, Wed 3-5, and by appointment.

 

Description

 

Alien invasions, viral outbreaks, nuclear holocaust, the flood, the rapture, the second coming, the second ice age, the rise of the machines—these are just a few of the ways human beings have imagined their “end of days.” This class will pose the theoretically imposing question, “So, like, what’s up with that?” What do we tell ourselves about ourselves when we dream of the apocalypse? What are the social and political functions of these narratives in any given historical period? How do different cultures imagine the apocalypse, and what do these differences reveal? I am anxious to discover some answers to these questions, and not just because the end could indeed be upon us or because you’re nearing the end of your undergraduate lives. We will read three contemporary novels, sample from the vast array of apocalyptic films—from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The Planet of the Apes (Charleton Heston’s rather than Marky Mark’s) to The Matrix—and immerse ourselves in the critical and cultural theories that surround apocalyptic narratives.

 

Please take note. This is your class, and your active engagement with its subject matter is crucial to its success. The course should reflect your growth and development as a writer, thinker, and scholar. You will be conducting independent research throughout the semester—watching and actively critiquing at least two films, searching out meaningful articles that expand our understanding of apocalyptic rhetoric and narratives, and ultimately designing a final research project capable of changing the face of literary studies (or at least blowing the class’s collective mind).

 

Required Texts

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

(All theoretical and critical material will be on electronic reserve through the library. Expect to read at least one critical article or chapter per week.)

 

Requirements

 

Active participation in class, a twenty minute oral presentation, two short essays (2-3 pages), tons of process-based writing assignments, and a substantive research project of fifteen to twenty pages (plus a prospectus, abstract, and annotated bibliography), and a final presentation.

 

 

Explanation of Course Requirements

 

Final Grade: To pass the course, students must turn in all written work and have no more than four absences. Your final grade is comprised of the following: Final Paper of Fifteen to Twenty Pages (40%); short essays (10%); Process-Based Writing Assignments (30%); Participation and Editorial Work (10%); Oral Presentation (10%).

 

Essays: Your basic task for both your short and your long paper is to produce a well-written, coherent essay whose central argument is both interesting and significant. Your essays will be thesis-driven, argumentative papers, and your grade will be determined by the complexity of your central argument, the structure of your paragraphs, the logic of your organization, and the strength of your prose (i.e. your writing). In your short essay, you will apply at least one of the theories (or theorists) discussed to a critical reading of The Road or Parable of the Sower. Your research paper will examine a text or texts of your own choosing that you analyze through the lens of the seminar’s theoretical apparatus.

 

Reading Assignments: The reading assignments can be found on the online syllabus (http://www.westga.edu/~jmasters/). You can expect to read about 150 pages each week.

 

Process-Based Writing Assignments: Every Wednesday (i.e. the day after class), I will post the following week’s writing assignment at the bottom of the online syllabus. All writing in this class submitted for credit must be typed. Your papers for this class will be written over a period of weeks rather than in one, long sleepless night. Expect some of these assignments to be fairly involved affairs that take you through the process of writing a thesis-driven, critical essay, and later, a fifteen to twenty page research paper. These assignments will be graded on a ten or twenty-point scale, and your grade will be based on your assignment’s level of completeness and the degree to which you’ve followed the directions. Late assignments will be penalized two points for each weekday that they are late.

 

Late Essays: I will accept late essays, but always with a penalty. For each weekday that a paper is late, 1/3 of a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade. For instance, if the paper is due on Tuesday and you turn it in on Wednesday, you will lose 1/3 of a grade (i.e. a C+ becomes a C). If you turn it in on Thursday, 2/3 of a grade is deducted (a C+ becomes a C-).

 

Oral Presentation: Each student will be responsible for teaching a twenty minute class based on an oral presentation that holds one apocalyptic film up to another. The choice of films is entirely up to you, but the presentation must establish a clear sense of the films’ historical context(s). You will receive a document with more detailed instructions.

 

Discussion and Attendance: Students are expected to attend every class and arrive on time, prepared, and eager to discuss the day’s reading and writing. Your participation grade is based upon your performance in the class in terms of group work, discussion, and attendance habits. You are expected to demonstrate genuine engagement with the material, actively contribute to discussion topics, show adequate preparation for each class, and respect the ideas of your classmates. You must bring the text under discussion to every class, including a print-out of the critical reading assignment.

 

Email: All official email correspondence must take place through UWG accounts; however, I will also be establishing a class list using your preferred email address for other forms of communication. Your emails should be proofread and written in full sentences.

 

Tardiness and Leaving Early: If you arrive at class late or have to leave early, it counts as ½ of an absence.

 

Absences: I understand that illnesses and emergencies are a part of life, and therefore you are allowed to miss two classes (or, a total of five hours of class). I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences unless the absence is due to participation in an official University activity (such as band, sports, debate, etc.). Students will be administratively withdrawn from class based on the following attendance policy. Once a student exceeds four absences—even if that occurs at the end of the semester—the student will be withdrawn. If the withdrawal occurs prior to the withdrawal date (March 1), the student will receive a grade of W. If the withdrawal occurs after the withdrawal date, the student will receive a grade of WF.

 

My Plagiarism Policy: If a student is caught plagiarizing (and this includes short writing assignments), he or she will automatically fail the course. No exceptions.

 

Departmental Plagiarism Policy: The Department of English and Philosophy defines plagiarism as taking personal credit for the words and ideas of others as they are presented in electronic, print, and verbal sources. The Department expects that students will accurately credit sources in all assignments. An equally dishonest practice is fabricating sources or facts; it is another form of misrepresenting the truth. Plagiarism is grounds for failing the course.

 

Reporting Procedures for Plagiarism:
Each incidence of plagiarism is subject to review and consideration by the instructor, and is subject to a range of penalties including but not limited to failing the assignment, failing the course, and referral to the disciplinary review board (which may ultimately result in the expulsion, suspension, or disciplinary removal of the student from the university). In order to facilitate the prevention and detection of plagiarism the Department of English and the University of West Georgia will maintain records of plagiarized assignments and those who prepare and/or submit them.

 

Course Goals

Program Goals

Students with disabilities should meet with me at the beginning of the semester, and we will make any necessary arrangements.

 

The reading schedule and assignment due dates are posted on the online syllabus. Slight changes and modifications are always a part of the semester, so plan to consult the syllabus regularly (before each class). All changes will be announced in class well in advance.

 


 

Reading and Assignment Schedule

 

1/12:   “Duck and Cover”: An Introduction to Our Apocalyptic Class

No written assignment.

 

1/19: The Road to top of page 60. Excerpt from Berger’s After the End (Docutek), about 70 pages.

Single paragraph assignment (10 points).

 

1/26: The Road to page 173. Excerpt from Dixon’s Visions of the Apocalypse (Docutek).

Mountain of a Note  assignment (10 points).

 

2/2: Finish The Road. Excerpt from Thompson’s Apocalyptic Dread.

More Notes and Annotated Bibliography entry (20 points).

 

2/9:  Parable of the Sower, to page 99 (the year 2026).

Short paper #1 due.

 

2/16:  Sower to page 224 (through Chapter 18); Montgomery Chapter

A bunch of disorganized ideas about your final project (10 points).

 

2/23:  Sower to the end. Frank Kermode’s Essay, “Waiting for the End.”

Mountain of Notes for short paper #2 (20 points).

 

3/2:  Baudrillard Chapter "Simulacra." Last Day to Withdraw with a "W" is Monday, 3/1.

See bottom of the syllabus for writing assignment, which is based on an MLA essay of your choice.

 

3/9:  Oral Presentations, Group 1

Final project prospectus, Group 2 (20 points)

 

3/16: Oral Presentations, Group 2.

Final project prospectus, Group 1 (20 points)

 

3/23: No Class

 

3/30: Discuss the Anthology Project, assign jobs, tasks, dictators, etc.

Text-based Mountain of Notes due, at least five single-spaced pages. (30 points)

 

4/6: Writing Workshop and conferences

Detailed Outline due (20 points), Complete Annotated Bibliography due. (40 points)

 

4/13: Anthology Workshop: The Cover! Writing Workshop

Five pages of drafted material due. (30 points)

 

4/20: Workshop, Workshop, Workshop

Complete rough draft due. (30 points)

 

4/27: Last Class, Final Draft of Final Papers Due!

 

 

Writing Assignment for 1/19

Please write your response to the following question in paragraph form. Plan to write a single, well structured paragraph that opens with a significant and/or interesting claim (i.e. an argument), and I'd like you to include one direct quotation from The Road and one from After the End that are properly cited (just for the heck of it, include a works cited at the end of the document). A double-spaced paragraph that's about 2/3 of a page long would be ideal.

My question is wide open. Based on the first sixty pages of The Road, what moment, episode, or sentence has struck you as loaded with meaning and signification? How does a particular theory or idea from Berger help to unpack the meaning of that moment?

Please consult my "MLA Template" document, which is linked on my webpage's frontpage. I will subtract a point for citation errors.

Writing Assignment for 1/26

Your first "major" assignment of the semester is going to be a short essay (2-3 pages) on The Road. You will be asked to focus a specific thematic element (i.e. a motif or recurring concern in the text) of your choosing. The assignment due Tuesday is an opportunity to begin exploring an element in the novel that you find particularly interesting/significant. Choose a passage from this week's reading (and please limit your choice to something from this week's reading) that speaks to the element, and then construct a "mountain of notes" entry about the passage. Typos, fragments, half-baked ideas, and minor epiphanies are all acceptable. The key is to investigate the language of the passage, seek out connections, and push yourself towards some conclusions. The entry should be typed and single-spaced and should ideally be at least a half a page. Below you will find the entry we did in class as a group.

For 2/2

The syllabus says you have an "Annotated Bibliography Entry" due next week, so I should explain what I'm looking for in these. Rather than a formal piece of writing, consider this more of a pre-writing, exploratory kind of assignment. After you've finished The Road, you should have in mind a topic or an idea for a short essay, something you can tackle in under three pages (I am, in fact, putting a cap on these essays). In the paper, you will also be engaging one of the critical readings, so for Tuesday, write up how and why you think one of the secondary sources will help you to think through your approach to the novel. Begin with a proper citation of the source, followed by an overview of its central premise/purpose/thesis. Below this, write up some thoughts on how you see the source working in your (as yet unwritten) paper, and a potential quotation (or two) that you might use.

March 2

Begin by doing an MLA search, using "apocalypse" as your search word (Go to the UWG library website, click "Databases," click "Literature and Languages," scroll down and click "MLA.") Nearly 1500 entries will be listed. Narrow the entries to about 800 by clicking "Journal Articles." I'd like you to look at a dozen or so whose titles interest you. (Note: some entries will be viewable as PDFs even if a PDF file is listed right below the entry.) I skimmed a few of the entries on the first page (entries 1-20), and I found two that I now want to go back to and read in full. Which is to say, there are tons of article-length papers on the apocalypse out there. Your job is to settle on one that you find particularly interesting (and possibly relevant to your final project), and to write up a brief report about it that you will present in class. A short paragraph is fine (what's the topic of the article, what's its thesis, why did you pick it), but plan to speak for two or three minutes.

They went back through the store again looking for another cart but there were none. By the door were two softdrink machines that had been tilted over into the floor and opened with a prybar. Coins everywhere in the ash. He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca Cola. (22-23)

Context

Man and boy come to a grocery store on the outskirts of a city, relatively early in the novel, so it’s a somewhat foundational moment, something we’ll remember as we read forward.

Meaning

a.      a. The normal becoming the “other” in an apocalypse setting. Utterly familiar icon (like tires on a car) become something else entirely.

b.      b. Money is another cultural icon, totally familiar, but worthless. This Coke is invaluable—our language is the language of commericical (this Coke 1.25 it’s priceless) (think more about the linguistic implications of this scene). Reminds me of a twisted apocalyptic commercial—the pervasive language and imagery of the consumer world.

c.       c. The sentence about coins is a fragment, interesting.

d.      d. Global image—everything associated with Coke—Christmas for instance—is also gone.

e.      e. Shopping cart: they’re like hobos, constantly looking for food, shopping for survival. Missing shopping carts indicate other people (like them?), shopping cart people the new norm. Completely limits their mobility on the road (and the road is the one thing with permanence).

f.        f. Mocks consumerism, strips the mask away of possession: everything he has is who is.

Connections

a.      Remember back to the wonky wheel, everyone knows that experience, but he repairs it (so that’s interesting).

b.      Others signs of consumer world like the billboards something to keep in mind.