Professor:
Kirsten Kaschock
Office
location: Stratton 103C
Office
hours: T 1-2 (and by apt)—in office or at Joe’s coffee… text if you are
dropping by
Email:
kjk42@drexel.edu
Phone:
215-285-6955
ENGL 320 – Major Authors
Whitman and Dickinson: Uncommon Verse
“Nadia... I am coming. Expand, contract, expand.”
–Mike
Myers, So I Married an Axe Murderer
Course Description/Goals
In this class, we will look at
two North American poets creating revolutionary work during a period of intense
historical upheaval. In the mythic sweep of Whitman’s prophetic and psalmic
self-promotion and the gemlike facets of Emily Dickinson’s un-common verse, we
find the essential forces of modern poetic action: contraction and expansion.
We will examine the larger
American Romantic historical context that these writers are both exemplars of
and defectors from. We will look to their autobiographies and libraries…
particularly to delve into their potential understandings of the role of the
poet (a role each felt called to). By extension, we will learn how their unique
embodiments of those roles inaugurated the modern era of American poetry.
This class will engage
*primarily* with Whitman and Dickinson’s poetry (rather than prose… her
letters, his essays and a novel, or other ephemeralia). Because of this, our
own writings/reflections will be in the style of close readings… an essential
tool of literary (and all other) analysis. Susan Howe’s magnificent My Emily Dickinson, one of the required
texts of the class, is an extended, fully-researched and poetic meditation on
Dickinson’s work that we will look to as a model of just what is possible in
this form.
Course Texts and Materials
My Emily Dickinson Susan Howe
The Complete Poems of Walt
Whitman ed.
Francis Murphy
MANY online resources, pages of
which must be printed out for in-class annotation
THE CLASS BLOG—must be consulted Wednesday and Friday
afternoons each week for links to class readings… clarifications and
explanations of assignments… helpful summaries of classwork… and things I
forgot to say because I am tangential.
YOUR Reading Blog—is to be
created on the first day of class and fleshed out according to your brilliance.
This is the place that you will record your own trip down the rabbit hole.
Grades
Because of the
discussion/lecture nature of this course, no absences are preferable. Two
absences will be permitted with minor penalty. A third absence will lower your
grade substantially. A fourth absence will result in failing grade. Plan your
illnesses accordingly.
Final
paper:
33%
Second Paper: 25%
First Paper: 20%
First Paper: 20%
Reading Blog: 12% (or more)
In–class Participation: 10%
You
should feel free to see me in my office hours or make an appointment to review
at any time your progress in the course. We will review the work you have done
so far and I will be able to give you an approximation of the grade you would
receive, should I have to grade you at that time. Otherwise, you will receive grades/responses
on your first two papers and and likewise in response to your final paper and
reading blog.
Field Trips
I will
offer two separate field trips during this term… one to the Walt Whitman House
in Camden, NJ—accessible by public transport… and one to the Barnes
Foundation—to understand what was going on simultaneously in European fine art
as Whitman and Dickinson were producing their distinctly American work with
words.
Use of Student Writing
It is understood that participation
in this class presupposes permission by the student for the instructor to use
any student work composed as a result of this course as classroom material.
Class
Participation and Attendance
ENGL 320
is primarily a lecture and discussion course, so attendance at all class
sessions is very important. I cannot repackage an hour-and-a-half long class
into an email if you miss the class. This should be obvious. Attending class is
a basic requirement. If you miss, please contact peers for notes before approaching
me. PLEASE TAKE NOTES DURING OR IMMEDIATELY AFTER CLASS (the blog is for this).
Please email me at least a day in advance if you know you necessarily must be
absent from class. University sanctioned activities are excused, but they must
be cleared beforehand and the work that is otherwise due completed before the
absence. If you miss two classes early in
the term, I will send you a note suggesting that you drop the course and
take it when you are more able to be present. I encourage you not to miss ANY classes. Significant absences
and lack of in-class participation will significantly affect your
grade.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (changes may
occur/check blog on the regular)
Week
1: Introduction
T— Intro to Whitman, Dickinson, to One Another, the Class
Th— Enlightenment,
Romanticism, Modernity
read/PO:
Shelley’s Defence of Poesy, poems
assigned on blog
Week 2: American Strains
T—
American Romanticism: the Transcendental and the True
read/PO:
Emerson’s The Poet, poems assigned on
blog
Th— Autobiography: myth and
remyth
read/PO:
poems assigned on blog
Week
3: Puritan and Prophesy
T—
The things they read and things they said
read:
My
ED—Intro through Part 1 (p 28)
WW
741-62 (Preface to LoG)
Th— The things… cont.
read/PO:
poems assigned on blog
Week
4: Melancholia and Manifest Destiny
T—
Interiority and Expansivity in Dickinson and Whitman
read:
My ED—Part 2
Th— FIRST CLOSE READING DUE
IN CLASS: W or D
Week
5: Word and World
T— The era of the dictionary – lexicon and lists
read/PO:
pieces assigned on blog
Th— Geography and Nature in
the 19th century
read/PO:
pieces assigned on blog
Week
6: Self-Promotion and Self-Preservation
T—
Th— SECOND CLOSE READING DUE IN CLASS: (the other one)
Week
7: Civil War—the Political is Personal
T—
Th— 1-page PROPOSAL for FINAL PAPER/PRESENTATION due.
Week
8: Fascicles and Reprints/Queering Production
T—
Th—
Week 9: Influence and Confluence
T—
Th— Any final presentations
(rather than papers) due in-class.
Week 10: No class. Email me
fully-formal final papers by Tuesday at MIDNIGHT.
Technology
Expectations and Tech Support
You need
to be able to access Blackboard Learn, and you also must have an active Drexel
email account. If you are having problems accessing Learn, setting up your
email please contact http://www.drexel.edu/irt/ or call the Help Desk at
215.895.2020.
Academic Integrity
In
essence, by academic integrity we mean not pretending that others’ words are
your own. When you use other people’s word in your work, you’re expected to
tell your readers that these are someone else’s ideas and words, not your own.
Citing in this fashion often works to your advantage: you can document that
you’re not the only person with these strange ideas. You can check out Drexel
Universities’ policies on plagiarism on the following
website: http://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/studentaffairs/sccs/FINAL_StudentHandbook2012_1213.ashx
Drexel University Writing Center
The
Drexel Writing Center (DWC) is staffed by Peer and Faculty readers who will
help you develop as a writer through one-on-one consultations on current
writing projects. The DWC website has more details:
www.drexel.edu/writingcenter. www.drexel.edu/writingcenter. The DWC is located
in 0032 MacAlister Hall and can be reached at 215-895-6633.
Drexel Office of Disability Resources
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