Syllabus

English 449: The Spirits of Modernity
Amardeep Singh
Fall 2004

Tentative Syllabus


8/24 Introduction
8/26 Ulysses 1, 2 (Telemachus and Nestor)

Recommended (throughout Ulysses): Gifford
Probably discuss: Ties to Portrait of the Artist; Stephen’s fall out of the priesthood; “Method” of each chapter; Relationship to The Odyssey

8/31 Ulysses 3 (Proteus)

Recommended: Ellmann biography excerpts on 1904 (avail. 8/27)
Recommended:
Moretti chapter on Joyce

9/2 Ulysses 4, 5 (Calypso, Lotus-Eaters)

Probably discuss: Bloom’s dietary practices, Irish Jews, Zionism, Jewish
Pork-butchers
Recommended: Marx, Neil Davison, Weinbaum

9/7 Ulysses 6, 7 (Hades, Aeolus)

Probably discuss print culture, newspapers, Irish nationalists,
Irish
Republicans/Catholics
Recommended: Declan Kiberd

9/9 Ulysses 8 (Lestrygonians)

9/14 Ulysses 9, 10 (Scylla and Charybdis, The Wandering Rocks)

Probably discuss Shakespeare; Ghosts, deconstruction (a little)

9/16 Ulysses 11 (Sirens)

9/21 Ulysses 12 (Cyclops)

Recommended: Enda Duffy, Maria Tymoczko

9/23 Ulysses 13-15 (emphasis on 15) (Nausicaa, Oxen of the Sun, Circe)

9/28 Ulysses 16, 17 (emphasis on 17) (Eumaeus, Ithaca)
9/30 Ulysses 18 (Penelope)

Recommended: Bonnie Kime Scott

10/5 Papers on Ulysses due; Maybe look at some T.S. Eliot poems in class (no new readings)
10/7 No class (pacing break)

10/12 T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets
10/14 T.S. Eliot: Critical essays on Literature and Religion

10/19 E.M. Forster: Passage to India

Probably discuss: concepts of space; Christians, Hindus, and Muslims; Khilafat
Movement; Urdu poetry (Ghalib, Faiz, Iqbal)

10/21 E.M. Forster

Probably discuss: riots, Mohurram festival in Shia Islam, Sepoy Rebellion (1857)
Recommended: Furbank, Freitag, Baucom

Note: Sizeable reading assignment this week

10/26 H.D.: Trilogy

Probably discuss: Sex and Sprit in the midst of war
Recommended: Janice S. Robinson biography chapters on Moravianism, Trilogy

10/28 H.D.

11/2 Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses

Probably discuss: Migration and identity; Good and Evil; Graffiti vs. Holy texts

11/4 Rushdie

Recommended: Background on Islam

11/9 Rushdie

Recommended: Aravamudan

11/11 Rushdie

11/16 Rushdie
11/18 Rushdie

Short paper on Rushdie, Eliot, or H.D. due

11/23 Start James Wood, The Book Against God

Also look at excerpt from Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase
Probably
discuss: 20th century Spiritual autobiography

11/25 No class (Thanksgiving)

11/30 Finish James Wood
12/2 Last day of classes

12/9 Final papers due (tentative deadline). Any author or issue you are interested
in, including authors not on the syllabus.