Mares - Fletcher 313
Office Hours: TR 3-4 & by appt.


LIFE WRITINGS: Schedule

 

Jan. 17 - Introduction
19 - Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary + Biographical sketch

  

VW Links

Woolf Web


Virginia Woolf Seminar

Bloomsbury: Books,Art, and Design
(Toronto Exhibition)

24 - Woolf
What does Woolf say about the diary form and her purpose(s) in keeping a diary?
• Reading through the Diary, what entries strike you as odd, surprising, or especially memorable?
• Your experience of reading the Diary

26 - Woolf (+pictures of Monk's House, Knole, Woolf and family)



31 - Woolf/ Writing Workshop
• Due: two or three questions or topics relevant to the readings that you believe are
 worth exploring and writing about, plus rationale and comments on any problems you anticipate
Feb. 2 - Woolf,  "A Sketch of the Past"
• Also read Shari Benstock's "Authorizing the Autobiographical" (in Women, Autobiography, Theory)

7 - Doris Lessing, Under My Skin
9 - Lessing

Doris Lessing: A Retrospective

Zimbabwe Reference Page

"Similarities between Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing" Article

 

14 - Lessing/ Writing Workshop - PAPER DUE IN CLASS - To see possible topics, click here.
16 - Lessing

21 - Adrienne Rich, "Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity"
23 - Rich, "Split at the Root" (cont.) + Sources
"Adrienne Rich: An Interview with David Montenegro"; excerpts from Rich's "The Genesis of 'Yom Kippur 1984'" and Albert Gelpi, "The Poetics of Recovery: A Reading of Adrienne Rich's Sources"


28 - Toi Derricotte, The Black Notebooks (to p.116); Tape of Derricotte reading from
       The Black Notebooks (work-in-progress) at SBC

Mar. 1 - Derricotte + "Blackbottom" and "Notes on My Son's Face"
• Also read Mae Gwendolyn Henderson's "Speaking in Tongues: Dialogics, Dialectics, and the Black Woman Writer's Literary Tradition" (in Women, Autobiography, Theory)
• Writing Workshop -submit questions on the readings and topics for Paper #2

Derricotte Site
Listen to her read "The Weakness"


[Mar. 3 - Revised 1st paper]

Spring Break - March 3-12

13 - Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
• Compare 1999 interview in text to 1993 interview with Donna Perry from Backtalk
• Select a poem to present from the group of poems at the end of Borderlands....
15 - Anzaldua
• Discuss her use of mythology in Borderlands. (Also see related websites below.)
• Read Lourdes Torres's "The Construction of the Self in U.S. Latina Autobiographies" (in Women, Autobiography, Theory)

 

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Mural of Coatlicue
Statues of Coatlicue (1)
Statues of Coatlicue (2)
Painting of Coatlicue/Christ

Great Aztec Site

 

 


Anzaldua site

The Border
[PBS - Excellent 'related links']

"Chicano"
Chicano/Latino West & Borderlands

[ Friday: PAPER DUE - To see possible topics, click here.]

20 - Richard Rodriguez, "India" - from Days of Obligation
"Crossing Borders: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez," Scott London, The Sun
 (August 1997) ("...those tiresome Chicanos...")
Excerpts from "Richard Rodriguez Reconsidered: Queering the Sissy (Ethnic) Subject", Randy Rodriguez, and "Anti-pastoral and Guilty Vision in Richard Rodriguez's Days of Obligation," Paige Schilt (TSLL, Winter '98)

     SPECIAL PROJECT PROPOSALS DUE IN CLASS    
     [For proposal and project guidelines, click here.]


22 -    Writing Workshop

 
Vivian Gornick (Photo by Sigrid Estrada)

  
27 - Gornick - Interview with Donna Perry from Backtalk
• What seems to be her purpose in writing this memoir?
• What are its strengths, in your judgement? Its weaknesses?
• What might one learn about writing from reading this book?
29 - J.M. Coetzee, Boyhood
+ biographical/critical sketch from Contemporary Authors

Interview

[On winning the Booker Prize]



Apr. 3 - Coetzee
• What seems to be Coetzee's purpose in writing this memoir?
• What are its strengths, in your judgement? Its weaknesses?
• What about this book might be especially valuable to you as a writer?
5 - Coetzee (cont.)
Reviews of Boyhood from the NYR (John Banville); Boston Phoenix (David Kurnick); New Statesman (Maurice Walsh); New Republic (Caryl Phillips); World and I (Judith Chettle)
    Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude / Writing Workshop  

 

 

 

Auster Resource Page

 

Hear Auster perform

"A Brief Biography"

[7-  Partial draft of special project (or detailed progress report) due]

9 - Auster + Biographical sketch and critical comments (from CA and v. 47 of CLC)
• What seems to be Auster's purpose in writing this book?
• What is odd, surprising, or especially memorable about the book?
• What are the book's strengths, in your judgement? Its weaknesses?
• What about this book might be especially valuable to you as a writer?
12 - John Edgar Wideman, "Our Time" - from Brothers and Keepers (xerox)

Salon Interview (1996)



•Voice(s) in Wideman


17 - Wideman (cont.) + Wideman video (reading from Brothers and Keepers)
Luis Rodriguez, From Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
• What works, for you, in Rodriguez's work? What doesn't work as well? Why?
[19 -
No Class]

24 - Eudora Welty, "The Little Store" + Wallace Stegner, from Wolf Willow
• Place, voice - and gender(?)
• Course Evaluations

26 - "The Memoir Versus the Novel in a Time of Transition," Jay Parini
(Chronicle of Higher Education, July 10, 1998)
"Imposed Yet Familiar: In Defense of the Memoir," Joan Frank
(AWP Chronicle, Dec. 1997)

"What Memoir Forgets," Patrick Smith
(The Nation, July 27/August 3, 1998)
"Teaching Autobiography," Nancy K. Miller
(1991; rpt. in Women, Autobiography, Theory)
• REVISED PAPER #2 DUE
• IN-CLASS WRITING: Retrospective Commentary


>>>>SPECIAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS - Monday, May 1 at 1:30 p.m.<<<<




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Last updated 26 April 2000.