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Schedule

Notes:

  • Although not noted individually on the schedule, nearly every day, there will be informal reflective engagement exercises related to the readings due that day. These reflective engagements will inform our class discussion on any given day and also form the core of your participation grade in the course.
  • Blog prompts will always be posted to the course website on the last day of discussion for any given book, and posts are deadlines (generally a few days after we wrap up discussion) are noted in the schedule below. You can miss one blog post (7 required, 8 possible)

WEEK 1_______________________________

Thursday 1/9

  • Syllabus Review
  • Selections from Humans of New York
  • Course Introduction: What is the Self?
    • Reflective Engagement 1: What is a “self.” Do we have some kind of deeper identity that exists beyond the intersection of various traits and attributes: our citizenship status, our culture, our class, our various attributes of identity (gender, sexuality, race), our body, our beliefs, our familial, social, and institutional roles? We see in the stories linked above how a stable sense of self is so easily displaced and challenged, but also supported and endorsed as individuals navigate what it means to be a self. Afer we discuss a few of the linked stories, try to write a brief sketch of yourself in a moment–or as a recasting of a memory–where we get the sense of a self being formed or deformed, supported or challenged, in a way that could be momentous but might also be quite mundane. What does your sketch say about the “self”–its provisional quality, its stability, its mutability, its power?

WEEK 2_______________________________

Tuesday 1/14

  • Reading Autobiography Now Chapter: Chapter 1, “Defining and Discerning Life Narrative Forms” (3-39) and the first section on Memory from Chapter 2 “Autobiographical Subjects.”
  • “Against Catharsis,” T Kira Madden.
  • Reflective Engagement 2: Next week, we will be working to unpack a range of concepts in the “Autobiographical Subjects” chapter in small groups. Today, we are modeling this work with the first key concept–“Memory.” There are two options: small-group/critical and solo/creative.
    • If you choose small group/critical:
      • Define the term in your own words, and use a quote or two from the text to help distill what you take to be the over-arching and most important considerations when thinking about memory.
      • Briefly discuss the various facets the concept that the authors break down for us.
      • Identify what you took to be the most confusing moment in that section and introduce it to the class as a problem for us all to consider.
      • Relate the concept to “Against Catharsis” by Madden–you might use the question on “Memory” on page 184 of Reading Autobiography Now to get started on applying these ideas to Madden’s essay.
    • If you choose solo/creative, please respond to the following prompt:
      • Madden, in her essay, refuses to let her audience be a passive consumer of her text–or worse, a voyeuristic presence witnessing the writer’s pain. Instead, she gives us a throttling image less to heal herself than to invite us to return to and re-imagine our own pasts. “Art is a superpower,” Madden writes, “that allows creator and consumer to be in dialogue regardless of circumstance or logistics or miles, a shared experience, a third plane found when two people meet when seeing one another through the page.” To be more direct, she wants us to “remember [our] own moments as a child on the other side of the glass.” She gives us a memory that, she writes, “is not longe mine. It’s yours.” It’s a stunning reversal, and a strong call or engagement and what the authors of Reading Autobiography would call “relationality.” In your creative post, please take Madden up on her invitation and narrate a moment from your life as a child on the other side of the glass. Please interpret Madden’s scene broadly, as she does: this won’t be a moment of your narrated “I” banging on a car window, of course; it is any moment where any barrier–physical or emotional, vast or minute, real or imagined–led to an indelible memory that you could never shake.

Thursday 1/16

  • Reading Autobiography Now, Chapters 2 “Autobiographical Subjects” (50 – 102)
  • Reflective Engagement 3: during our last class, we talked about “memory”–the first concept from the chapter on “Autobiographical Subjects.” Today, we explored a new set of related concepts: relationality, identity, experience, space, embodiment, and agency. In your small groups, please do the following:
    • Define the term in your own words, and use a quote or two from the text to help distill what you take to be the over-arching and most important considerations when thinking about memory.
    • Briefly discuss the various facets the concept that the authors break down for us.
    • Identify what you took to be the most confusing moment in that section and introduce it to the class as a problem for us all to consider.
    • Relate the concept to “Against Catharsis” by Madden–you might use the question on “Memory” on page 184 of Reading Autobiography Now to get started on applying these ideas to Madden’s essay.

WEEK 3_______________________________

Tuesday 1/21

  • Reading Autobiography Now, Chapter 3 “Autobiographical Acts” (103-152) and Chapter 4 “What About Autobiographical Truth” (153-165)
  • Reflective Engagement 4

Thursday 1/23

  • Reading Autobiography Now, excerpts from Chapters 5-6.
  • Today’s reading is meant to be skimmed and perused. Please select two concepts from Chapter 5’s toolkit of reading strategies that you find more dynamic, helpful, and compelling. Be prepared to write about these and discuss with the class. These are strategies we’ve come across before, so this should work as a kind of review. Please also read the brief introduction to Chapter 6 (193-200) and skim through Chapter 6’s compendium of genres and concepts. There is no reflective engagement related to this material. Instead, just take the time to read over this material and begin work on the blog post due on Sunday.
  • Blog 1 due Sunday 1/26 at 5pm

WEEK 4_______________________________

Tuesday 1/28

Thursday 1/30

WEEK 5_______________________________

Tuesday 2/4

  • How to Say Babylon (203 – 329)
  • Reflective Engagement 7

Thursday 2/6

  • Solito (beginning – 104)
  • Blog 2 on How to Say babylon Due Sunday 2/9 by 5pm
  • Reflective Engagement 8

WEEK 6_______________________________

Tuesday 2/11

Thursday 2/13

  • Solito (199 – 381)
  • Blog 3 on Solito due Sunday 2/16 by 5pm

WEEK 7_______________________________

Tuesday 2/18

  • Stay True (1-83)

Thursday 2/20

  • Stay True (85-193)
  • Blog 4 on Stay True due Sunday 2/23 by 5pm

WEEK 8_______________________________

Tuesday 2/25

  • Sink (beginning – 130)

Thursday 2/27

  • Sink (131 – 245)
  • Blog 5 on Sink due Sunday 3/2 by 5pm

WEEK 9_______________________________

 

Tuesday 3/4 & Thursday 3/6–Spring Break

WEEK 10_______________________________

Tuesday 3/11

  • In the Dream House (3 – 86)

Thursday 3/13

  • In the Dream House (87 – 146)

WEEK 11_______________________________

Tuesday 3/18

  • In the Dream House (147 – 242)

Thursday 3/20

  • Final Project Introduction and Brainstorm
  • Blog 6 on In the Dream House due 3/20 by the start of class

WEEK 12_______________________________

Tuesday 3/25

  • Whiskey Tender (beginning – 94)

Thursday 3/27

  • Whiskey Tender (97 – 158)

WEEK 13_______________________________

Tuesday 4/1 

  • Whiskey Tender (161 – 289
  • Blog 7 on Whiskey Tender due Sunday 4/6 by 5pm

Thursday 4/3

  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (beginning – 127)

WEEK 14_______________________________

Tuesday 4/8

  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (129 – 242)

Thursday 4/10

  • Final Project Proposals Due
  • Final Project Roundtable Presentation & Discussion
  • Blog 8 on On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous due Sunday 4/13 by 5pm
  • Sign Up for Individual or Group Conferences on Final Project

WEEK 15_______________________________

Tuesday 4/15

  • This week, we will hold individual or small group conferences related to the final project. Class meetings will be dedicated to collaboration and final project work.
  • Submit Final Project Research Plan (framing and summarizing the research that will support your project)

Thursday 4/17:

  • This week, we will hold individual or small group conferences related to the final project. Class meetings will be dedicated to collaboration and final project work.
  • Blog Revisions (posted) and accompanying Revision Memo (via email ) due 4/17 by the start of class

WEEK 16_______________________________

Tuesday 4/22

  • Final Day of Class
    • Final Project Workshop–complete drafts due at start of class
    • Final Reflections
    • Course-Instructor Evaluations

Finals Week_______________________________

Final Presentations during exam time: Tuesday, April 29: 1:00 – 3:00: 5 minutes max

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