Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
What’s in a Question? Literary Inquiries and Interrogations, 1900-1964
Winter 2015
TTH 9:00AM-10:50AM, 160-B37
Office Hours: Thursday 2:00-4:00PM and by appointment
Course Description: This course explores whether the question—seemingly a transhistorical
rhetorical construction that appears evenly from the Middle Ages to the present—might have
a special franchise in literary works of the period 1900-1964. From T. S. Eliot’s “Do I dare to
eat a peach?” to Faulkner’s “Why do you hate the south?” to the tremendous popularity of
Agatha Christie’s sleuths, modernism’s fascination with questioning seems to indicate an
increased sense of epistemological doubt and existential anxiety. On the other hand, the
period also sees writers, like Gertrude Stein or Ernest Hemingway, who conspicuously shy
away from posing questions, even to the extent of refusing the question mark. How are we to
interpret such marked lack of interrogation? We will focus on four writers, but relate the
concerns of the course to other nodes in literary, intellectual, and socioeconomic history.
Some suggestive contexts to consider in relation to the question will be the rise of show trials,
the consolidation of psychoanalysis, and the decline of religious catechism. Not only will we
reflect on our contemporary relationship to forms and practices of questioning (routine
google searching, pervasive “uptalk,” asking Siri for information, etc.), we will also examine
the questions that we ask of texts as readers and literary critics—what do we ask, and how?
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
TEXTS
Readings will be capped at 170 pages per week, and will taper off during writing-intensive
weeks. All primary texts are fairly canonical, but some are works less regularly read in the
English core (Ford, Forster). Others, like Eliot’s The Waste Land or Joyce’s “Ithaca,” may be
familiar to students from Literary History III or other survey courses; in such cases, this class
will draw upon and consolidate students’ prior knowledge while spurring them to parse more
carefully and speculate more boldly. Students are also encouraged to browse through listed
optional readings—all students will briefly present on one optional reading throughout the
quarter (see “Minor Assignments,” below).
Primary Texts (Available at Stanford Bookstore, except Joyce’s “Ithaca,” which will be
posted on Coursework):
1) Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Solider (1914)
2) T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917); “Portrait of a Lady” (1917);
“Conversation Galante” (1917); “Gerontion” (1920); “Sweeney Erect” (1920); “Sweeney
among the Nightingales” (1920); The Waste Land (1922)
3) James Joyce, “Ithaca,” from Ulysses (1922)
4) E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924)
5) Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1953)
Secondary Texts (will be posted on Coursework):
1) Ranier Lang, “Questions as Epistemic Requests” from Questions (D. Reidel, 1978)
(selections)
2) E. M. Forster, “Plot,” from Aspects of the Novel (Harcourt Brace, 1927), 83-104
3) Ansgar F. Nunning, “Reconceptualizing Unreliable Narration: Synthesizing Cognitive and
Rhetorical Approaches,” from A Companion to Narrative Theory (Blackwell, 2005)
(selections)
4) Michael Levenson, “Character in The Good Soldier,” Twentieth Century Literature (1984
winter), 373-87.
4) Virginia Woolf, “Character in Fiction,” (1924) from The Essays of Virginia Woolf, vol.3
(Hogarth Press, 1988), 420-38.
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
5) Roland Greene, “Poem,” from The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
(Princeton, 2012), 1046-48.
6) Vincent Sherry, “Mr. Eliot’s Wartime Services,” from The Great War and the Language of
Modernism (Oxford UP, 2003) (selections)
7) Linda Hutcheon and Michael Woodland, “Parody,” from The Princeton Encyclopedia of
Poetry and Poetics, 1001-03.
8) Selected Letters of E. M. Forster, Eds. Mary Lago and P. N. Furbank (Harvard UP, 198385) (selections)
9) Rex Ferguson, “Mysteries and Muddles in A Passage to India,” from Criminal Law and
the Modernist Novel (Cambridge UP, 2013)
Optional Readings (will be posted on Coursework):
1) Gertrude Stein, “Poetry and Grammar,” from Writings, 1932-1946 (Library of America,
1998), 313-36.
2) Maria DiBattista, “Ulysses’s Unanswered Questions,” Modernism / Modernity (2008 Apr),
265-75.
3) Maud Ellmann, “A Sphinx without a Secret,” from the Norton Critical Ed. of The Waste
Land (Norton, 2001), 258-75.
4) Patricia Stubbs, “Mr. Forster’s Telegrams and Anger,” from Women and Fiction: Feminism
and the Novel 1880-1920 (Harvester Press, 1979), 208-22.
5) Sianne Ngai, “Tone,” from Ugly Feelings (Harvard UP, 2005) (selections)
Major Assignments:
1) Short, speculative close reading assignment (3-4 pages) on one aspect of questioning in
The Good Soldier (minimum 2 drafts). The initial draft will focus on practicing sustained
formal analysis and engaging in one or two careful speculations on the bigger historical or
theoretical implications of such analysis without reference to secondary material. After inclass workshopping, the second draft will focus on adjusting, corroborating, and historicizing
the first draft’s speculative dimensions through a limited incorporation of secondary sources
(no more than two).
2) Final paper proposal (no more than 1 page): students will draft a research proposal of no
more than 1 page outlining the research problem that they intend to explore in their final
research paper.
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
3) Annotated bibliography and “methods” paper (2-3 pages): students will draft an annotated
bibliography of at least 5 sources related to their final project; they will also write a short
“methods” paper where they choose 1 or 2 sources from their annotated bibliography and
identify, analyze, and evaluate rhetorical, argumentative, and methodological strategies that
they find particularly compelling and effective. These may range from the very small
(beginning an essay by gesturing towards the etymology of a word; limiting contextual
digression with timely phrases like “… for reasons that need not detain us here”) to the very
big (e.g. “how reading Dreiser through the lens of compulsion as opposed to determinism
fundamentally shifts the way we think about American naturalism”).
4) Final research paper (12-15 pages) (minimum 2 drafts):
The final research paper must give extensive treatment to at least one literary text, although it
need not be a work covered in class (subject to instructor’s approval). The paper must engage
in some way with the topic of the question, broadly defined. Drafts will be workshopped in
class, with the student producing at least two drafts total.
Minor Assignment
Each student will give a brief presentation (5-7 minutes) on one of the listed optional
readings throughout the quarter. He or she will succinctly summarize the argument of the
secondary reading, draw the class’s attention to one or two moments that illuminate (or fail to
illuminate) the theme of the question and / or the week’s primary readings, and start off the
discussion in creative and interesting directions.
Learning Goals
1. Development of close reading skills, or the cultivation of careful, persistent attention to
literary form; development of sensitivity to interpretatively rich moments instead of
perpetuating irresponsible notion that every moment in the text is equally close-readable
2. Circumspect development of distant-reading heuristics that are derived from particular
works but may be tested against a broader archive to illuminate our knowledge of genres or
periodization. (e.g. the placement of a question in a structurally prominent position, such as
the beginning or end of a lyric, etc.)
3. How to construct an interesting and imaginative research project: learning how to catalyze
a general topic of interest (“the question”) through specific tropes, affects, and processes
(tone, syntax, punctuation and revision culture, voice, plot, etc.); learning how to relate the
topic to historical contexts (the modernist period as one of show trials, the rise of
existentialism and the ironization of theological catechism, the consolidation of
psychoanalysis, etc.)
4. Demystification of rhetorical and argumentative strategies used by literary critics; how to
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
adapt them for one’s own argument
5. Consolidation of planning and writing skills for a long research paper, especially in the
following areas: how to research and archive effectively, how to read secondary sources
“opportunistically,” how to join the critical conversation, how to outline, time management,
and careful awareness / development of personal style
Conferences
I will hold regular office hours and encourage you to come talk as often as needed. All
students will be expected to conference with me at least twice throughout the quarter.
Weekly Schedule (subject to minor changes)
Date
Jan 6 (T)
In Class
Due
Week 1 Questioning Modernity
>Introduction: Why question?
Reading:
>Listen to Seth Lerer’s podcast, The Good Soldier, 13-64
“uptalk”
Lang, “Questions as Epistemic
>Discussion of readings
Requests” (excerpts)
>What is close reading?
*Optional:
Gertrude Stein, “Poetry and
Grammar”
Jan 8 (TH)
Reading:
The Good Solider, 67-144
Forster, “The Plot,” from
Aspects of the Novel
Nunning, “Reconceptualizing
Unreliable
Narration”
(excerpts)
Week 2 “Why”? vs. “And Then?”: Ascribe vs. Describe
Jan 13 (T)
>Discussion of The Good Soldier and
Reading:
secondary texts
The Good Soldier, 147-end
> Writing exercise: reflect on close
Levenson, “Character in The
reading in Watt’s “The First
Good Soldier”
Paragraph of The Ambassadors”;
Woolf, “Character in Fiction”
practice emulating or rejecting for Writing:
own analysis
Choose scene to close-read for
>Putting multiple secondary sources in 1st assignment
conversation
Jan 15 (TH)
>Wrap up The Good Soldier
Due: 1st draft of close reading
>Peer review workshop
assignment
Sign up for conferences
Week 3 “Shall I at Least Set My Lands in Order?”: Quests, Queries, Quietisms
Jan 20 (T)
>Discussion of Eliot
Reading:
>Discussion of The Good Soldier and
secondary texts
>What is “opportunistic reading”?, or
How to read criticism effectively
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
Jan 22 (TH)
Jan 27 (T)
Jan 29 (TH)
Week 5
Feb 3 (T)
Feb 5 (TH)
>Review strategies for writing effective
topic sentences
>Address elements of style (esp.
transitioning from old to new
information, deploying verbs
over noun phrases, ending
sentences with emphasis, etc )
>Discussion of The Waste Land and
secondary reading
>What is symptomatic reading?, or
reading as ideological unmasking
(handout from Sharon Marcus
and Stephen Best)
Eliot, “The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock”; “Portrait of a
Lady”; “Conversation Galante”;
“Gerontion”; “Sweeney Erect”;
“Sweeney
among
the
Nightingales”
Greene, “Poem,” from PEPP
Reading:
Eliot, The Waste Land
Sherry, “Mr. Eliot’s Wartime
Services,” from The Great War
and
the
Language
of
Modernism (excerpts)
Week 4 Catechisms, or What We Believe in, c. 1922
>Discussion of The Waste Land, Reading:
continued. Relate to “Ithaca”
Re-read The Waste Land
>2-3 students will give 5-7 minute Joyce, “Ithaca”
presentations
on
optional Hutcheon
and
Woodland,
readings
(Dibattista
and “Parody,” from PEPP
Ellmann)
>Questions in historical context:
*Optional:
the reign of psychoanalysis DiBattista,
“Ulysses’s
(handout from Introduction to Unanswered Questions”
Psychoanalysis, p.127-28)
Ellmann, “A Sphinx without a
Secret”
>Wrap up Eliot
Due: 2nd expanded draft of
>Questions in literary history:
close reading assignment
handout of famous catechisms
in literature (The Scarlet Letter,
“The Lamb,”1984)
>Write short memo reflecting on
one’s writing processes so far
Popping the Question: Marriage Deferred in the New Century
>Discussion of Passage to India
Reading:
>Questions in and of authorial voice:
Passage to India, chaps. 1-11
handout on free indirect
Forster’s bio in Project Muse
discourse from Moretti’s
“Serious Century”; compare
with an excerpt from
Hemingway’s The Sun Also
Rises
>Discussion of Forster, continued
Reading:
>1-2 students will present on optional
Passage to India, chaps. 12-19
reading (Stubbs)
Selections from Forster’s letters
> How to historicize responsibly:
*Optional:
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
Feb 10 (T)
Feb 12 (TH)
Feb 17 (T)
Feb 19 (TH)
Feb 24 (T)
Feb 26 (TH)
Mar 3 (T)
Mar 5 (TH)
Mar 10 (T)
handout excerpted from
Stubbs,
“Mr.
Forster’s
Levinson’s “Reflections on the
Telegrams and Anger”
New Historicism”
Week 6 “Mysteries and Muddles”: Empire in Doubt
>Discussion of Forster, continued
Reading:
>How
to
research
effectively; Passage to India, chaps. 20-28
introduction of good starting Start reading own sources
points
Sign up for conferences
>What is the annotated bibliography?
>Discussion of Forster, continued
Reading:
>Roundtable discussion of research Passage to India, chaps. 29-36
proposals
Due: research proposal
Week 7 Writing the Research Question
>Wrap up Passage to India
Reading:
>How to turn your “topic” into a Ferguson,
“Mysteries
and
“research question”
Muddles in A Passage to India”
>Review and revise research proposals
in small groups
>Peer review workshop
Due:
>How to outline #1: portioning out annotated
bibliography
&
your ideas; what to place in the methods paper
introduction
Week 8 Tragicomic Interrogations / Towards a Thesis
>Discussion of Waiting for Godot
Reading:
>How to outline #2: dealing with Waiting for Godot, Act I
counter-arguments; ways to
conclude an essay
>Discussion of Beckett, continued
Reading:
>1-2 students will present briefly on Waiting for Godot, Act II
optional reading (Ngai)
*Optional:
Ngai, “Tone” (excerpts)
Week 9 What Do We Know? Trivia in Jeopardy!
>Watch a clip from Jeopardy!
Reading:
>Peer review workshop
Berthold, “Jeopardy!, Cultural
>Writing strategies and reflections:
Literacy, and the Discourse of
Articulating the purpose of your Trivia”
own
writing;
recognizing Due: first 5 pages of final paper
hidden
or
inadvertent Sign up for conferences
implications of your own
rhetoric; avoiding semi-circular
statements
>Peer review workshop
Due: (by Sunday of week 9)
>Further research tips: citation 1st full draft of final paper
managers vs. citing directly; Bring work-in-progress to class
using authoritative editions;
saving papers
Week 10 Artificial Intelligence, or Questions in Our Time
>Wrap up re: questions
Reading:
Winter 2015, English 162W
Instructor: Mary Kim
Mar 12 (TH)
>Titling your paper and other elements
of style
>Write second reflective memo on own
writing
“Smarter than You Think;
Computers That Listen to You
Make Strides in Talking Back”
(NYT article)
“We Talked to Siri about Her,
and Whether She'll Ever Fall in
Love” (Esquire article)
Presentations of final paper
Due: final draft of final paper
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Honor Code
The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in
1921. It articulates University expectations of students and faculty in establishing and
maintaining the highest standards in academic work:
1. The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:
1) that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive
unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or in any other work that is to be
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themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code.
2. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining
from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to
prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as
practicable, academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.
3. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the
students and faculty will work together to establish optimal conditions for honorable
academic work.