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I Don't Even
Aug. 1st, 2010 05:11 pmMy mom gave me a book of illustrated fairy tales by Oscar Wilde yesterday. She is officially the MOST AWESOME PERSON EVER.
Aug. 1st, 2010
When In Doubt, Ask The Internet
Aug. 1st, 2010 10:50 pmI have a blank spot on my schedule for this term where an English class should go, and I can't make up my mind.
Option One:
Everything But Modernism: Low to Middling Genres
"Since the era of modernism (1890-1940), we have learned to distinguish sharply between "high" literature, serious and advanced, and low or middlebrow literature. Exciting as the high culture of modernism is, what about all the other kinds of imaginative writing people read for pleasure? Reading American and British works 1900-1940, this seminar explores the ancestry of the ever-popular but still-stigmatized realm of "genre" writing. Genres include: mystery, romance, thriller, scifi, war poetry, and the realist novel. Knowledge of modernism not required."
Pros: closer than a lot of my high literature classes to what I want to do professionally (especially since I have a plot for a deconstructionist 1920s-style murder mystery and a lesbian noir story on the back burner), sounds really interesting/fun
Cons: I don't know the professor, the work load looks challenging (the final is a 10-14 page research paper, eek), the topic feels a little frivolous for my senior year (and it's not all genres I like)
Option Two:
Narrative and Narrative Theory
"An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? This course will focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative through primary texts and secondary texts such as Fludernick’s An Introduction to Narratology."
Pros: I like literary theory, it sounds really interesting/useful, it's the same professor from my American lit class last year and he was amazing
Cons: an intro level required class, so the course material might be below the level I'm working at now and/or it might be full of freshmen, I'd be rereading a few books I've read for his class last year
What do I dooooooo, internet?
Option One:
Everything But Modernism: Low to Middling Genres
"Since the era of modernism (1890-1940), we have learned to distinguish sharply between "high" literature, serious and advanced, and low or middlebrow literature. Exciting as the high culture of modernism is, what about all the other kinds of imaginative writing people read for pleasure? Reading American and British works 1900-1940, this seminar explores the ancestry of the ever-popular but still-stigmatized realm of "genre" writing. Genres include: mystery, romance, thriller, scifi, war poetry, and the realist novel. Knowledge of modernism not required."
Pros: closer than a lot of my high literature classes to what I want to do professionally (especially since I have a plot for a deconstructionist 1920s-style murder mystery and a lesbian noir story on the back burner), sounds really interesting/fun
Cons: I don't know the professor, the work load looks challenging (the final is a 10-14 page research paper, eek), the topic feels a little frivolous for my senior year (and it's not all genres I like)
Option Two:
Narrative and Narrative Theory
"An introduction to stories and storytelling--that is, to narrative. What is narrative? When is narrative fictional and when non-fictional? How is it done, word by word, sentence by sentence? Must it be in prose? Can it be in pictures? How has storytelling changed over time? This course will focus on various forms, genres, structures, and characteristics of narrative through primary texts and secondary texts such as Fludernick’s An Introduction to Narratology."
Pros: I like literary theory, it sounds really interesting/useful, it's the same professor from my American lit class last year and he was amazing
Cons: an intro level required class, so the course material might be below the level I'm working at now and/or it might be full of freshmen, I'd be rereading a few books I've read for his class last year
What do I dooooooo, internet?