Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
2202344
Contemporary World Literature in English
Puckpan Tipayamontri
Office: BRK 1106
Office Hours: M 1–3
(from off campus, via Zoom Meeting Room) and by appointment
Phone: 0 2218 1780
puckpan.t@chula.ac.th
Final
Paper
In studying Contemporary World
Literature in English this semester, we have examined not only literary
texts (poems, short stories, plays, and novels), but also the concepts
that attend such a project (What is the contemporary? How might one
define the world? Which texts are literature? What constitutes English?)
as well as the critical act itself (What is it that we do when we read
and analyze a text? What are the limits and possibilities of critical
reading and of different theoretical approaches? How might our
expectations, biases, and interpretive acts shape the literary
encounter?). How do you assess your experience and respond now to these
questions from Pomona College professor raised in
our first session?
Are
we decrypting, translating, or paraphrasing the texts we read?
Demystifying them? Remystifying them? Are we trailing them as literary
detectives, or trying them in a readerly court? Are we bathing them in
acids to reduce them to their constituent parts? What is at stake for us
in reading works of imaginative literature, and what social—and
solitary—functions does it perform?
This
final paper makes use of your preliminary Lit Spot examination and test
2 analyses of texts, builds on the reading and research skills we have
worked on, and gives you an opportunity to flex your investigative
muscles and assess your close reading results one last time.
Quick View
- 3–5 pp.
- MLA
style format and citation
- Due Friday, December 10 by 4:00
p.m. (Word file of the paper received in my e-mail inbox.)
Guidelines
The
paper is individual work but, in response to your suggestions about
group collaboration, there are two slight variations that you can choose
to engage in: 1) independent scholar, and 2) panel scholar. If you
choose the first option, any focus topic in the suggested list below
applies to you. If you have a group of classmates who are interested in
pursuing a particular topic with you, the second option applies to you
where each member of your panel chooses a focus under the same umbrella
topic, and where a panel conclusion is included aside from individual
focus conclusions. When you e-mail me your paper, make sure one team
member includes this panel topic conclusion.
Suggested
Paper Topics
Below
are topic ideas for you to develop and refine for your final paper. Of
course, you are welcome to formulate your own as well, and, if you like,
sign up to run it by me or to consult on your
plans and writing.
- Can English Be Non-Anglocentric?
Anglophone literature can be a tricky read because this default
language might give a false default culture. As encounters like
Aishwarya Rai on Letterman calling out US parent-adult children
relationship assumptions or BTS refusing Ellen's goading about dating reveal,
using English as a lingua franca uncovers cultural faultlines when
English speakers forget that the diverse world does not necessarily
share their stance and norms despite that common language. Rai enjoys
being with her parents and her Mumbai culture does not consider living
with parents as an adult immature, and she feels empowered enough to
turn Letterman's insinuation into an American failing rather than a
superior standard. BTS, likewise, are polite but steadfast in not
giving into Ellen in her unquestioned American ideas about sexual
relationships. This panel seeks to investigate these instances where
English expresses world views, values and assumptions different from
stereotypical English or US ideology. Questions about the text to
consider (which also happen to be especially relevant in our current
glocalized world) include:
- How might English nativize an "other"? What assumptions might a
native English reader have about "foreign" peoples and locales, and
how does the text disrupt them? What biases about intelligence,
eloquence, agency, maturity and complexity are involved when a
non-native uses English (fluently or falteringly)?
- How might an author de-exoticize or de-foreignize unfamiliar
concepts, events or environments through the medium of English?
- What cultural differences and double standards are exposed in the
works?
- What local sensibilities and realities does the text offer? How?
- In what ways do the texts support or refute the argument mentioned
in Neumann and Rippl that Anglophone world
literatures have a "consumerist thrust" and risk being "yet another
global commodity" (1)?
- Focus 1: Fokir
- Focus 2: Tutul
- Focus 3: Kusum
- Focus 4: Horen
- Focus 5: Moyna
- Focus 6: "i jio you with this
eraser"
- Focus 7: "Intaba Zebhukazana"
- Focus 8: "The Roadblock"
- Focus 9: "The Question"
- Focus 10: "Water in a Sieve"
- Focus 11: "A Kind of
Justice"
- Can Literature Be Non-Human-Centric?
How do different works envision the world? Is it an Anglo-European
trait to be anthropocentric? When literature is not about humans, what
can it be about? What priorities do different texts give to entities
and/or qualities and what meanings are invested in them? This panel
aims to explore this human art form when it looks beyond the human
self. Questions to consider include:
- How is the world conceived if not a human one? Which texts view this
earth, this galaxy, or this universe as not merely for or about human
beings? What other world components, functions, and values are
presented that do not revolve around the benefit or perceptual scope
of humankind?
- Which genres or subgenres resist human-centrism more effectively
than others? Why?
- What are the effects and implications of literary writing that
orients around entities and forces outside the human interest and
realm? How might this appeal to the human readership?
- Focus 1: The inanimate
- Focus 2: The smaller majority
- Focus 3: "the first frost---"
- Focus 4: The non-human in The
Hungry Tide
- Technology
What is the interplay between technology and the contemporary world
that current anglophone literature cares about? From nuclear energy
that powers industries and lifestyles, and that also became some of
the world's most devastating disasters (ex. Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Chernobyl, Fukushima) to genetic engineering that gives us COVID-19
vaccines, gene-edited CRISPR babies, and biotech foods such as
plant-based burgers and lab meat, technology shapes not only music,
mobility, health and schools, but also attitudes and the very fabric
of human beings. This panel seeks to explore literary representations
of technology. Some questions to be considered:
- How is technology defined and depicted? Must technology be digital
or mechanical?
- What functions does technology have? Is it benign, beneficial or
dangerous? In what ways is it desirable, necessary, active, passive,
or damaging? Does its status change in the work?
- What connections does technology have to other things or to other
elements in the work (sound, smell, touch, love, philosophy, history,
characters)?
- Focus 1: Art
- Focus 2: War
- Focus 3: Supernintendo
Ranchero
- Focus 4: "A Kind of Justice"
- Focus 5: "Les chemins
lumière"
- Focus 6: "Virtual"
- Focus 7: "Eye for Eye"
- Focus 8: The Couple
in the Cage
- Focus 9: "Cabernet
Sauvignon with My Brother"
- Focus 10: Waiting for
the Barbarians
- Focus 11: Letters from
Cuba
- Focus 12: The Hungry
Tide
- Picturing Bodies
How do different texts and cultures represent bodies? This panel aims
to investigate the meanings attached to the physical form. Questions
to pursue:
- What is the sociocultural significance of each type of body?
- How much textual proportion is devoted to which types of bodies?
Does how they occupy space relate to their value or prominence?
- Which types of bodies are sexualized, when, and how?
- Which types of bodies are exoticized, when, and how?
- Which types of bodies are racialized, when, and how?
- What ideal or aesthetics is involved in the bodies depicted?
- Focus 1: Female
- Focus 2: Male
- Focus 3: Children
- Focus 4: Elderly
- Focus 5: Racial,
interracial
- Focus 6: Animals
- The Hungry Tide
Worldscape
As a product of Ghosh's vision of art and the world as mutually
influencing and in his quest for "a form—or a style or a voice or a
plot—that could accommodate both violence and the civilized
willed response to it," how does this novel fare? Is it possible for
the specific to "transcend the national"? Notice what the Touch of...
examination that you have done illustrates in terms of the worldscape
that the novel creates. Some questions accompany the focuses to
stimulate your thinking and extend your analysis of the text.
- Focus 1: Actions
- Notice verbs in the novel. Who and what act? What do they do?
- What types of actions are described and how typical are they of
the actors? How does including gods' actions affect the worldscape
created? Is refusing to act a type of action, for instance, Nilima's
active withholding of aid to Morichjhãpi? What is the difference
between inaction as a passive vs. an active act?
- Focus 2: Animals
- What animals appear in the novel? What is notable about their
quantity, size, range, characteristics and function? How usual or
unusual is this, and why is it significant?
- How are animals described? In what ways is their depiction unique
to this story?
- What information or qualities about animals are given? How do
their descriptions (ex. color, shape, biology, history, myth,
metaphor, love, death) shape their function in the story?
- Focus 3: Celestial objects
- How does the sun figure in the novel? In what ways is it connected
to the looking and seeing imagery?
- How does the moon function in the novel compared to the sun? What
diction, imagery, and powers are associated with it?
- Might communication satellites count as a celestial object in this
story? Why or why not?
- What effect does having gods occupying the same heavenly space as
scientific astronomical and technological bodies have on the world
of the novel?
- Focus 4: Food
- What foods are mentioned and for whom? Who eats what and when?
- How is food described and what associations are made between food
and other things or ideas?
- When is food necessary, a luxury, destructive, personal, social,
environmental, political, historical, linguistic, religious,
humorous, metaphorical, or aesthetic?
- Focus 5: Giving
- What economic system explains giving? How do gifts and giving in
the novel question, redefine, and critique existing conceptions of
human interaction with others and with other elements of the world?
- How does the language of giving differ from the language of
transaction, commerce, or capitalism?
- What things are given, under what circumstances, and with what
expectations (or lack thereof)? How tangible are they? How valuable
are they? How are they received? What impact do they have?
- Focus 6: The English
language
- Focus 7: Non-English
languages
- What non-English languages are depicted or alluded to in The
Hungry Tide?
- How many languages can a character speak? What is the significance
of this? What kind of literacy is this?
- What role do dialects, accents, individuality, age, gender, class,
intimacy, economics and history play in non-English languages?
- Focus 8: Mud, dirt,
earth
- What forms of earth are depicted in the novel and what functions
do they have?
- When is mud valuable and when is it not? What gives meaning and
value to mud, dust or soil?
- In what ways is soil political, historical, biological,
philosophical, religious, and literary?
- Focus 9: Plants
- Focus 10: Poetry and
the poetic
- What kinds of people or things are associated with poetry or the
poetic? Which of these are unexpected, and why?
- What qualities and imagery are associated with poetry or the
poetic? Are they depicted as desirable, positive, unsatisfactory,
useless, all of the above, none of the above? What makes poetry
beautiful and what makes it effective, impractical, timely, or
problematic?
- Do characters or elements change in their relationship to poetry
or the poetic throughout the story? How so, or how not?
- What instances of poetry appear in the novel? How similar or
dissimilar is poetry of diverse traditions and languages presented
in the story?
- Focus 11: Prose and
the prosaic
- Focus 12: Silence
- What takes place in silence? Why is this significant?
- How might the kinds of silences in the novel be categorized?
- What does silence mean when it includes sound, as in the
description "the quiet was more like a fog or a mist, creeping in
slowly, from a distance, wrapping itself around certain sounds while
revealing others: the sawing of a cicada, a snatch of music from a
distant radio, the cackle of an owl" (128)? How does this conception
of silence, not as the absence of sound but as composed of multiple
sounds, reflect on other similar scenes? Which sounds are part of
the quiet and which are noise?
- Focus 13: Sound
and soundscapes
- What sounds and types of sounds are described in the novel? Who or
what makes sounds? Why and in what circumstances? What is the
significance of depicting sound makers such as the house, the
generator, the pencil, and bubbles?
- Who or what can hear certain sounds and why is this significant?
What implications on the worldscape does the dolphin's echolocation
have—that their making of sound is the same act as seeing, and that
is sound-based sight can never be directed toward the self, that is,
that the dolphin never sees itself?
- How do sounds define a place or space, a time, a person, a mood or
a meaning?
- In what ways are sounds threatening or comforting, historical,
metaphorical, prescient? What is the significance of sound that is
unheard?
- Focus 14:
Speech, orality
- What qualities does speech offer that printed words does not or
cannot? In what ways does print efface uniqueness, individuality and
context that speech naturally and necessarily express?
- What ideas are associated with speech or the oral that, for
example, Nirmal is "amazed" by Fokir reciting entire cantos of the
story of Bon Bibi when he does "not know how to read or write"
(292)?
- Focus 15: Time
- Does time move in a linear fashion?
- When does time speed up or slow down? Why, and to what effect?
- Are there different time experiences, conceptions or measurements
in the novel? What are they? How do different characters and
entities (ex. Ganga, Dukhey, Nirmal, Tutul, crabs, islets) perceive
time or have meaning in relation to time?
- When does time matter, and why?
- When is time mentioned in a metaphorical or symbolic way?
- Focus 16:
Vehicles
- What kinds of vehicles are mentioned or alluded to in the novel?
What is the significance of the quantity and types depicted?
- What is the significance of vehicles that are named or
individualized? How is Horen's named Megha different from
other systems of named ships like Britain's HMS Queen Elizabeth?
What is the effect of some boats in The Hungry Tide having
names and others not?
- What physical functions do vehicles have in the story? Do some
vehicles have multiple functions or change function? What are these
uses and when do they change?
- What about symbolic functions?
- Do vehicles have the same meaning, value and function for
different people? What influences this?
- Focus 17:
Water
- Focus 18:
Wind, air
- What forms and functions does air have in The Hungry Tide?
Is wind a character in the novel, as the tide and the forest is?
- When is air visible, hearable, smellable, touchable, or tasteable?
- What kind of diction is used to describe wind or air? How is this
related to its characteristics and status change?
- Focus 19:
Writing
- Focus 20:
Metatextuality
- What does the novel say about art, the making of art, the ideal or
not so ideal reader, writer, listener, or audience?
- In what ways does the text make visible the process of making
text? Who makes literature, when, and how?
- How successfully does the novel meet its own challenge?
Quick
Reminders
- Don'ts: Pitfalls to Avoid
- Cherry picking
This is when certain data is used that fits a preconceived idea and
other information that does not is ignored. Selecting or considering
only data that conforms to a set idea that you like undermines
analyses and weakens your conclusion. The analytical process should
be the other way around: gathering relevant data, examining it, and
developing an argument from that full consideration. The idea should
grow out of studying the textual evidence, not having an idea first
and choosing evidence that agrees with it.
- Formulaic readings
Literature, as our discussions and common sense tell us, is rarely
formulaic or simplistic. Neither is the world it seeks to engage
with. Be wary of making absolute statements, either/or arguments, or
using binary frames.
- Plot summary
When developing your argument and making your points, notice the
difference between discussing the text and recounting the text.
Avoid retelling the story. One way to check is consider whether you
are describing and whether those descriptions are evident to a
reader of the novel already.
- Preachy or truistic conclusions
Resist the urge to moralize and make general pronouncements when
wrapping up your essay. Those wisdoms and generalizations are not
what you have tried to prove throughout your paper, are they?
Truisms don't need to be argued, illustrated and supported in the
manner of academic writing that you have done. The conclusion should
be specific to your paper. If you find yourself ending with a
sentence that could close all sorts of papers and many other pieces
of writing, then it is probably a weak finish that does not reflect
the original and exciting thesis of your paper. Assess your
discussion, tease out the implications of what has been examined and
the points you have made, and conclude what you have analyzed.
- Dos: Habits to Develop
- "Go for the jugular."
This, as my English teacher used to say, means get right to the
point from the beginning of your essay. Jump right into the topic,
define your focus, scope and stance, and set up the structure of
your essay/paragraph.
- Be clear and precise.
Vague and general statements (like "Knowledge is everywhere" or
"Communication is complex.") are easy to write but they are not very
informative. Readers are kept wondering "Where?" or "How?" or "Why
do I need to know this?"
- Cite specific text to illustrate
and support your ideas.
- Use literary present tense.
- Use complete sentences.
- Avoid contractions and
colloquialisms.
- Proofread (ex. for spelling, other
grammar, logic, argument, substantiation issues).
- Use MLA style.
Revision
Rewrite to fix problems regarding the argument, support, prose,
organization, mechanics, and style to make your paper more
effective. Some things to keep in mind as you proofread and edit your
work:
- Does my title show that I have a
point to make?
- Is my thesis sound, clear, and
interesting?
- Have I supported my thesis with
compelling evidence?
- Is the organization of my paper
logical and appropriate to the arguments I am making?
- Is my language clear, consistent,
and suited to the subject matter?
- Are my sentences varied,
interesting, and effective?
- Do each of my paragraphs have a
clear point and is it coherent?
- Do my verbs agree with their
subjects? Pronouns with their nouns?
- Is my paper free of spelling
mistakes?
- Have I cited my sources properly?
Links
Writing
information and support
- General Prose and Style
- College Writing
- Analysis
- Assessment
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Last updated December 9, 2021