Detailed Schedule | Contemporary Novels

Week 1	Jan. 4	Introduction Reading George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945; study guide)
Week 2	Jan. 11	Post-WWII Reading George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945; study guide)
Week 3	Jan. 18	Orwell, Animal Farm Reading George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945; study guide) John Rodden and John Rossi, "Animal Farm at 70," Modern Age 58.4 (2016)
Week 4	Jan. 25	1950s Reading Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) Betty Friedan, "1: The Problem That Has No Name," The Feminine Mystique (1963) The Novel's Travels: Where has the modern novel form traveled to in the world? Students give ten-minute reports on their findings of the novel's entrance into different global regions. When was the novel first introduced in that locale? Who brought it? Who began to adopt it? What did the form look like or become? What problems, if any, emerged when this new form was used and received in that new locale? Southeast Asia: Pawinee East Asia: Nurene South Asia: Supaporn Middle East: Pichamon Latin America: Rinrada
Week 5	Feb. 1	The Rise of Theory Reading Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) Vladimir Nabokov, "Good Readers and Good Writers" (1948)
Week 6	Feb. 8	1960s Reading Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)
Week 7	Feb. 15	1970s Reading Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)
Week 8	Feb. 22	1980s Reading Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, "The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison," The New York Times Magazine (2015) Zora Neale Hurston, "Characteristics of Negro Expression" (1934) Henry Louis Gates, "The 'Blackness of Blackness': A Critique of the Sign and the Signifying Monkey," Critical Inquiry 9.4 (1983) อรสม สุทธิสาคร, คำ สารภาพ บาปบริสุทธิ์ (2004) excerpts (read pp.14–30, 37–49, 69–88, 99–102)
Week 9	Mar. 1	Literary Prizes Reading Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) Elizabeth Kastor, "Beloved and the Protest," The Washington Post (1988) "Black Writers in Praise of Toni Morrison," The New York Times (1988) Toni Morrison, "Nobel Lecture" (1993) Test (1 hour)
Week 10	Mar. 8	1990s Reading David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996) excerpt Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979, 1984) excerpts Larry McCaffery, "An Interview with David Foster Wallace," The Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.2 (1993) Adam Kelly, "Dialectic of Sincerity: Lionel Trilling and David Foster Wallace," Post45 (2014) Final paper progress critique
Week 11	Mar. 15	No class (Chula Academic Expo: March 13–17, 2017)
Week 12	Mar. 22	The Novel in the World Reading Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997) excerpt
Week 13	Mar. 29	2000s: Locations and the Novel Reading Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004; study guide) Amitav Ghosh, "The March of the Novel through History: The Testimony of My Grandfather's Bookcase," Kenyon Review 20.2 (1998) Rebecca L. Walkowitz, "Introduction: Theory of World Literature Now," Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (2015)
Week 14	Apr. 5	Limitations and Possibilities of the Novel Form Reading Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004; study guide)
Week 15	Apr. 12	2010s Reading Class novel
Week 16	Apr. 19	Future of the Novel Class novel Rebecca Walkowitz, "Future Reading," ACLA (2015)
Week 17	Apr. 26	Review Margaret Atwood and the Future Library Alison Flood, "Margaret Atwood's New Work Will Remain Unseen for a Century," The Guardian (2014) Alison Flood, "Into the Woods: Margaret Atwood Reveals Her Future Library Book, Scribbler Moon," The Guardian (2015) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, "Secure the Base, Decolonize the Mind," Wits University (2017 public lecture; video clip, 2 hr. 23:04 min.; introductory remarks begin at 35:40, Prof. Ngũgĩ begins speaking at 1:00:50)
Week 18	May 3	Presentations *Final paper due May 12 (7–10 pp.)
Week 19	May 10	No class (Visaka Puja Day)
Week 20	May 15	Final Exam (8:30–11:30 a.m.) The final exam consists of two parts: short answer (1 hour) and essay (2 hours). For the short answer, you will be given sets of terms or passages to compare and contrast. You should be able to decide on a point of comparison for each set, give a brief explanation of similarities and differences between items in the set, refer to pertinent historical and cultural contexts, and also make relevant connections between that point of comparison and other features of the passage and of the text that it belongs to. The essay requires you to choose two critical texts and two literary texts from lists, and discuss benefits and limitations the critical concepts or approaches have on the reading of the two literary texts. You should be able to highlight concepts, concerns, methods, strengths and drawbacks of a critical viewpoint or approach as well as assess its effectiveness when applied to the reading of a contemporary novel. You should also be able to show characteristic aspects of a novel and consider them against others that come before and after. The provided list of texts to choose from for this essay part will focus on the latter half of the course and includes graphic novels you have individually read during the last weeks of class. Your discussion should focus on post-midterm texts but do not hesitate to refer to other novels if your argument calls for it.