Here are some options for your final project for this course:
1. An "Intellectual Handbook to the Apocalypse."
2. An annotated theoretical guide to one of our apocalyptic literary texts.
3. A close reading of one of our literary texts combined with one of our theoretical readings. Some pairings might be: Parable of the Sower with "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" or "The Fact of Blackness"; The Road with "Walking in the City" or "Simulacra and Science Fiction"; Zeitoun with "Introduction to Homo Sacer" or "Panopticism." Those are just a few ideas; there are many more possible pairings that could result in adept analysis.
4. A statement that forwards a theoretical critique of apocalypticism. Such an essay might be modeled in the style of Marjorie Garber's "Who Owns 'Human Nature'?", or Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto," or Barthes' "The Death of the Author."
Here are the details:
Your final project should be between 2000 and 2500 words, and it is due to me as a hard copy by December 16 at 5:00pm in my office. You must also post a short abstract (~200 words) on the blog that describes in brief what your project entails. (This is good practice: to be able to write a clear and cogent abstract of a longer academic work, written for a public audience.)
Whatever option you choose, your final project should engage a range of the texts that we have read for this class. You can also discuss one outside text that relates to the class, but you must provide an interpretive framework based on the readings from our class.
Please comment here, with ideas or alternatives as to what your final project for this course might entail.
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I think I like the Intellectual Handbook to the Apocalypse, assuming that we discuss characteristics or at least instances that we have seen "apocalyptic" writing within the works that we have read.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the idea that Kerry brought up during class last Friday about an open-ended final project. It seems that this class has been a unique learning experience for each of us, so I would like it if we were allowed to choose between the handbook idea, the theoretical critique, or our own idea for a project/paper topic. We should probably inform Dr. Schaberg ahead of time through a short proposal.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I'd like to explore different types of media for the final project. Maybe we could do physical depictions of a post-apocalyptic world through mediums such as sculpture and illustration or video footage of 'small apocalypses' that we experience. Since this is an English course, we'd probably want to somehow bring our project back to a 'literary' level.
Another idea would be to create a post-apocalyptic journal like Lauren from Parable of the Sower.
The nice thing about this being an English course is that as long as we write seriously and carefully about our subject, we're doing our 'job'. And since this is also a 'theory' course, part of our 'job' is also to write about subjects that sometimes seem oblique to 'English' per se. Theory is about writing (and thinking) out of your comfort zone, and still doing it rigorously and taking it seriously.
ReplyDeleteI think the handbook idea is great, and I also think this could tie in very well to your idea, Maria, about analyzing different media forms that deal with apocalypticism. This is what our Theory Reader does, in many ways: each chapter/essay takes on some media form and unpacks the complexities residing therein. I could imagine an intellectual handbook to the apocalypse that would seek to complicate apocalyptic rhetoric through some of the theoretical terms and concepts that we have discussed over the course of the semester. So, for instance, you could consider a series of scenes or formal aspects of the novels we are reading, and then suggest how certain ideas from Freud, or Kristeva, or Foucault, etc. can help to illuminate the thought-structure or representational functions of the literary works. Does that make sense?
Keep in mind that the goal is not so much to say something like "Here's what we would take with us into the apocalypse..."—because that mentality feeds the very sort of rhetoric that we are trying to attain a critical perspective on. Rather, we want to ask questions like these:
What sort of cultural norms, epistemological blind-spots, or subjective uncertainties motivate or give traction to apocalyptic narratives?
How can critical theory be seen to deflate (or take the drama out of) apocalypticism? How might such an intellectual deflation be useful for humans to be able to confront real tensions or shifts in the world that are more subtle and less obviously cataclysmic?
I'd be interested to see what other questions you all might come up with here, questions that could guide your final projects.
I was actually hoping to do a close reading of an apocalyptic novel and relate/compare it to some of our readings from the theory book, but the Intellectual Handbook to the Apocalypse sounds interesting to me too.
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