Susan Gillman
sgillman@ucsc.edu
Office: 640 Humanities 1
Hours: W 2-3:30 PM; F 1-3 PM
Literature 1: Literary Interpretation
Spring 2011
This course will assist students in developing the close reading and critical thinking skills necessary
for effective and elegant persuasive writing. We will approach our texts, all written in English, from
a worlded perspective, considering how global contexts and world histories are both reflected in and
shaped by the literature. Lectures will focus closely on the texts, working with basic methods of
literary analysis as well as placing the texts in historical and cultural context. Sections will provide
the opportunity for discussion as well as concentrate on students’ writing, going over rough drafts,
doing peer-editing, and working in small groups. The written work is designed to strengthen skills
in critical argumentation and persuasive writing as well as to build mastery of content. To those
ends, a variety of writing activities is required in relation to each of our readings: in-class freewrites, take-home reading responses, short papers, focusing on selected passages from the text, and
longer essays, some on individual works, with others comparative and synthetic. The goal is to give
students a solid foundation in literary interpretation and a working knowledge of theoretical
concepts in the historical, social and political analysis of literature.
Required Readings
Available at Literary Guillotine
204 Locust St., Santa Cruz
Henry Louis Gates, ed., The Classic Slave Narratives, (Mentor) ISBN 0451528247
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (Dover) ISBN 0486264734
Toni Morrison, Beloved (Penguin) ISBN 1400033411
William Shakespeare, The Tempest ed. Holland (Penguin) ISBN 0140714154
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus (Penguin) ISBN: 0140433627
Recommended Readings
Available on e-Commons
Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Caliban: Notes Toward a Discussion of Culture in Our America”
(1989)
Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American
Literature” (1988); “The Site of Memory” (1986)
Teaching Assistants and Discussion Sections
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
MW 12:30-1:40 PM
MW 3:30-4:40 PM
TuTh 8:30-9:40 AM
TuTh 2:00-3:10 PM
WF 9:30-10:40 AM
WF 11:00-12:10 PM
194 Kresge
132 Merrill
132 Merrill
194 Kresge
194 Kresge
132 Merrill
Lisa Schilz
Shawna Vesco
Heidi Morse
Kendra Dority
Erica Smeltzer
Matthew Suazo
Schedule of Readings & Writings
March
M 28
W 30
April
M 4
W
6
Introduction
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) [read pp.
323-94: from the prefatory testimonials by abolitionists Garrison and Phillips to the
start of Chapter 10, “the turning point” of the battle with Mr. Covey]
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass [finish reading]
Paper #1 due (2-3 page essay on Douglass: close reading of an assigned passage)
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (1856) [read pp. 37-45: Captain Delano encounters
and boards the San Dominick and asks to hear the story of the ship’s evident distress]
M 11
Benito Cereno [finish reading]
W 13
Benito Cereno: provisional conclusions
[Reread pp. 91-104, focusing on the legal documents that conclude the narrative]
M 18
Paper #2 due (3-page essay on Melville: close reading of key image-patterns and
metaphor-clusters)
Linda Brent [Harriet Jacobs], Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) [read pp.
437-505, from the prefatory material by author and editor through Chapter 10, “A
Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life”]
W 20
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl [finish reading: focus on Chapter 21-29, covering
the seven years in Linda Brent’s “loophole of retreat” (p. 567)]
W20/Th21/F22
In-class writing: a comparative look at Douglass, Jacobs, Melville
M
25
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus (1818; 1831)
[read through Volume 1, including 1831 “Author’s Introduction” on “my hideous
progeny,” 1818 “Preface by P. B. Shelley,” Walton’s letters, and Frankenstein’s
narrative]
W
27
Frankenstein [read through Volume 2, completing the narrative of the monster]
May
M
2
Frankenstein [finish; note: novel ends with Walton’s letters]
W
Frankenstein: provisional conclusions
4
W4/Th5/F6
Writing workshop in sections: rough draft due
M
9
Paper #3 due (5 pp. on Frankenstein)
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1623) [read Act I, Scene i & ii]
W
11
The Tempest [read Act II, I & ii – III, i]
Film screening: Forbidden Planet (dir., Fred M. Wilcox, 1956)
[Time and location TBA]
M
16
The Tempest [finish; focus on IV, i and V, i]
W
18
The Tempest: adaptations and contexts
Recommended reading:
Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Caliban: Notes Toward a Discussion of Culture in Our
America,” in Caliban and Other Essays (1989) [e-Commons]
Tu17/W18/Th19
Writing workshop in sections: rough draft due.
F
20
M
23
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) [read through Book One, 165]
W
25
Beloved [read through Book Two, 169-235]
M
30
HOLIDAY
June
W
1
W
8
Paper #4 (5 pages on The Tempest) due in HAS, Humanities 1, 5 PM
Beloved [finish reading; focus on Book Three, 239-75, especially “It was not a story
to pass on” (274-5]
Recommended reading:
Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in
American Literature" (1988) [e-Commons].
Morrison, "The Site of Memory” (1986) [e-Commons]
Paper #5 due (3-5 pages on Beloved: an imaginative and/or speculative response to
the text in the context of the readings and issues of the course as a whole).
Assignments and grading system
Essays
The papers ask you to take a critical, analytical approach to our readings. More detailed topics and
prompts will be handed out in class. The first two short papers focus on a single text and a set of
specific scenes or passages. The two longer papers, on Frankenstein and The Tempest, are more
broadly framed, asking you to think thematically about how the text works, and giving you the
choice of tracing a recurring metaphor or language cluster, doing a close reading of a pivotal plot
sequence, or addressing the larger narrative structure. The final essay, on Beloved, is the most wideranging of our assignments, an imaginative and/or speculative response to the text in the context of
the readings and issues of the course as a whole.
Final grade will be determined by the following measures, weighted more heavily toward the later
work:
Course engagement (attendance in lecture and participation in section, completing all quizzes and/or
in-class writing): 10%
Two short essays: 25% of total (the first about 10% and the second 15%)
Three longer essays: 65% of total (each weighted about equally)