David Letzler English 255:06 (ID6479) TTh, 4:30-5:54 (Kiely 173)
English 255: Global Literatures in English
English 255 is a historical study of the diversity of modern and contemporary
Anglophone literatures encompassing the complex transnational and postcolonial nature of much modern writing in English. Though English 251-254 have divided the history of English letters up to the beginning of the twentieth century between America and the British Isles, after World
War II, we can no longer make such distinctions so clearly. Not only has the world become more globalized, but the British Empire’s decolonization has led to the emergence of new
Anglophone literatures in India, Africa, and the Caribbean, while worldwide civil rights movements (especially in the United States) have caused populations that had not traditionally been involved in literary production to begin to publish. Meanwhile, other societal changes and the emergence of new technologies (especially innovations like radio and television) has forced writers everywhere to reconsider the function of literature in a world that is more culturally fragmented and where other communications media have usurped writing’s heretofore dominant place. Our survey of literature over the past seventy years will examine how writers of this period have responded to these paradigm shifts with respect to how their writing engages subjects like personal and communal identity, tradition and progress, science and religion, high and low culture, and many other topics.
English 255 fulfills the Perspectives (PLAS) requirement in the area of Reading
Literature. Students will become familiar with the disciplinary norms associated with literary reading. They will learn to pay close attention to language and be familiar with the reasons for the writer’s particular choice of language. They will learn how the writer uses the techniques and elements of literature and the particular resources of genre to create meaning. They will learn how texts differ from one another and how they interact with the larger society and its historical changes.
Objectives : In this course, we will seek to—
1.
Study historical changes in Anglophone language and culture over the past seventy years.
2.
Learn about major literary movements and authors of the period and the overall aesthetic approaches they bring to conflicts of the era.
3.
Hone our close-reading abilities to see how those authors individually engaged those shifts.
4.
Develop our abilities to write intelligent and cogent critical essays on these readings.
Texts : We will have six main texts, listed below. I do not care which editions you have, so long as you read the assigned sections and bring them to class on the required days (page numbers are keyed to the editions available for purchase at the bookstore). You must also purchase a small course packet with supplemental readings, available at Iver’s on the corner of Melbourne and
Main a few blocks from the college.
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart .
Athol Fugard, Blood Knot .
Toni Morrison, Beloved .
Tony Kushner, Angels in America (both parts).
Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao .
Salman Rushdie,
Midnight’s Children
.
Email: david.letzler@qc.cuny.edu
Office: KP 533 Office Hours: TTh 3:30-4:30

David Letzler English 255:06 (ID6479) TTh, 4:30-5:54 (Kiely 173)
Technology : We have a course webpage on Queens Writing website, at the URL http://letzlerspring2012.qwriting.org. I will make a post before each class, frequently with a question prompt, which I will expect you to read and comment on. Furthermore, I will communicate with you regularly by email, so you must give me an address that you regularly check.
Requirements : You will be expected to attend class regularly and punctually, having already read the assignments for that session and posted about them on your blog as assigned. I suggest you read them in the order I list on the calendar. We have quite a lot of reading for this term, so please keep up.
Grading : Your grade will be calculated as follows—
Short Response Papers: 10% (5% each)
Group Presentation: 10%
Midterm Paper: 20%
Final Paper: 30%
In-class Participation (including preparation and any miscellaneous assignments): 15%
Blog Participation: 15%
Plagiarism : The short version—don’t plagiarize. If you do, you will fail the assignment and perhaps the course.
The long version—there are two chief forms of plagiarism. One is the intentional submission of work written by others (e.g., a friend, an essay service, an encyclopedia, a website) as work of your own. This is unacceptable and will result in immediate failure.
The other form of plagiarism may be unintentional. When a writer fails to properly document material written by others that is used in his/her paper, even if he/she does not mean to, he/she is still guilty of plagiarism. We will review how to properly document in MLA style later this semester. For now, here’s a lengthy example, adapted from the Statement on Academic
Honesty for Students in Undergraduate Courses at Temple University in Philadelphia:
Original Passage : In 1925 Dreiser produced his masterpiece, the massively impressive An
American Tragedy.
By this time - thanks largely to the tireless propagandizing on his behalf by the influential maverick critic, H.L. Mencken, and by others concerned with a realistic approach to the problem of American life – Dreiser’s fame had become secure. He was seen as the most powerful and effective destroyer of the genteel tradition that had dominated popular American fiction in the post-Civil War period, spreading its soft blanket of provincial, sentimental romance over the often ugly realities of life in modern, industrialized, urban America. Certainly there was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American dream. With an eye at once ruthless and compassionate, he saw the tragedy inherent in the American success ethic; the soft underbelly, as it were, of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches myths so appealing to the optimistic American imagination.
Work Cited
Email: david.letzler@qc.cuny.edu
Office: KP 533 Office Hours: TTh 3:30-4:30

David Letzler English 255:06 (ID6479) TTh, 4:30-5:54 (Kiely 173)
Freedman, Richard. The Novel.
New York: Newsweek Books, 1975. Print.
Student Version
There was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American Dream.
Comment
Obvious plagiarism : word-for-word repetition without acknowledgment.
There was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as man or novelist. He was the supreme poet of the squalid, a man who felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American dream (Freedman 104).
Still plagiarism . The in-text citation alone does not help. The language is the original author’s and only quotation marks around the whole passage plus an in-text citation would be correct.
Nothing was genteel about Dreiser, as a novelist. He was the poet of the squalid, and felt that terror, pity, and beauty lurked under the American dream (Freedman 104).
“Nothing was genteel about Dreiser as a man or as a novelist. He was the poet of the squalid and felt that terror, pity, and beauty lurked under the American dream”
(Freedman 104).
Still plagiarism . A few words have been changed or omitted, but by no stretch of the imagination is the student writer using his own language.
Not quite plagiarism, but incorrect and inaccurate. Quotation marks indicate exact repetition of what was originally written.
The student writer, however, has changed some of the original and is not entitled to use the quotation marks.
According to Richard Freedman, by 1925
Dreiser’s reputation was firmly established.
The reading public viewed Dreiser as one of the main contributors to the downfall of the
“genteel tradition” in American literature.
Dreiser, “the supreme poet of the squalid,” looked beneath the bright surface of
American life and values and described the frightening and tragic elements the “ugly realities,” so often overlooked by other writers (104).
Correct . The student writer uses his own words to summarize most of the original passage. The citation shows that the ideas expressed come from the original writer, not from the student. The few phrases kept from the original passage are carefully enclosed in quotation marks.
Email: david.letzler@qc.cuny.edu
Office: KP 533 Office Hours: TTh 3:30-4:30

David Letzler English 255:06 (ID6479) TTh, 4:30-5:54 (Kiely 173)
Calendar of Readings/Assignments
(All assignments subject to change on at least one class’s notice)
1/31— Introduction: Postwar, Postcolonial, Postmodern
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
2/2—Things Fall Apart (1959), Achebe, pp. 1-125 (Part I)
2/7—Things Fall Apart , 127-209 (Part II)
2/9, This Weird American Life— “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1955), O’Connor; “The Swimmer”
(1964), Cheever; “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” (1966), Oates
2/14— “Howl” (1956), Ginsberg
Lost in the Funhouse
2/16, Who Are We?— “This Be the Verse” (1971), Larkin; “We Real Cool” (1960), Brooks; “Dinner
Guest: Me” (1951), Hughes; “A Far Cry From Africa” (1962), Walcott; “To Mr. William Wordsworth…”
(1999), Goodison; “Girl” (1978), Kincaid; “Diving Into the Wreck” (1973), Rich (Response Due)
2/21— NO CLASS; Monday Schedule
2/23, Metafiction— “No Name Woman” (1975), Kingston; “Lost in the Funhouse” (1968), Barth
2/28—Blood Knot (1964), Fugard
3/1—Beloved (1987), Morrison, 1-86 (Part I)
3/6—Beloved , 87-195 (Part I completed)
3/8—Beloved , 197-277 (Part II)
3/13—Beloved , 279-324 (Part III)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven
3/15, Mass Media and Mythology—
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939), Thurber; “In Memory of
Radio” (1961), Baraka; “Ave Maria” (1960), O’Hara; “Daffy Duck in Hollywood” (1976), Ashbery; “The
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven” (1993), Alexie
3/20—Angels in America , Kushner (1993), 13-125 (Millennium Approaches)
3/22—Angels in America 145-280 (Perestroika) (Response Due)
3/27—The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), Diaz, 1-75 (Chs. 1-2)
3/29—Oscar Wao 77-165 (Ch. 3)
4/3—Oscar Wao 167-261 (Chs. 4-5)
4/5—Oscar Wao 263-335 (Chs. 6-7 and Final Letter)
4/10&4/12— NO CLASS; Spring Break
4/17
—Midterm Paper Due (Bring Midnight’s Children
to class)
Midnight’s Children
4/19—Midnight’s Children (1981), 3-68 (Book One)
4/24—Midnight’s Children , 69-133 (Book One completed)
4/26—Midnight’s Children , 137-205 (Book Two)
5/1—Midnight’s Children , 206-305 (Book Two continued)
5/3—Midnight’s Children , 306-393 (Book Two completed)
5/8—Midnight’s Children , 397-464 (Book Three)
5/10—Midnight’s Children, 465-533 (Book Three completed)
5/15— Final Paper Due
Email: david.letzler@qc.cuny.edu
Office: KP 533 Office Hours: TTh 3:30-4:30