*Full syllabus to be distributed in first class*
English 111 F: Imagining Identity (Composition: Literature)
Dr. Matt Poland (mjpoland@uw.edu)
MW 3:30-5:20pm, Social Work Building (SWS) B010
This literature-oriented composition course has two purposes. First, together we will develop analytical sensitivity to the formal and discursive features of texts using the methods of close reading and ideology critique through reading, writing, and discussion. Second, we will consider how critical attentiveness to language and history can help us navigate current issues of identity and social inequality. By the end of the course, you will be a more analytical, reflective, and resourceful user of language, which will be helpful whatever your personal and professional goals.
We will be guided by two novels, Re Jane and Jane Eyre, and a film, Parasite. They are in some respects quite different: Re Jane is set just after 9/11 in New York and Seoul, Jane Eyre was written in the 1840s and is set in northern England, and Parasite takes place in contemporary Seoul. But all the texts feature characters fighting to establish independent lives even as they describe and analyze how they are enmeshed within communities and constrained by inequalities based on gender, race, culture, and economics. Their stories will act as a jumping-off point as you think deeply about your own situatedness, allowing critical insight to develop from your particular perspective. By asking more probing questions and communally producing new knowledge, we begin the work of making society better for ourselves and one another.
Textbooks
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) (Norton Critical Edition, 4th edition, ed. Deborah Lutz, ISBN 9780393270624, $21.25 new at UW Bookstore online)
- Patricia Park, Re Jane (2015) (Penguin, ISBN 978-0143107941, $17 new at UW Bookstore online)
Note: I recommend that you buy/borrow these particular editions (new or used). This helps class discussions run smoothly. If buying online, search by the ISBN number. If this requirement constitutes a financial hardship or presents accessibility issues, let me know and we’ll figure out a solution together.