English 64.006—Spring 2013
3 Credits. Pre-requisite: English 16
Tue&Thur 1:30-2:45 pm
Room: H216
Prof. Bernard Schweizer
email: schweizerb@yahoo.com
Office H445
Office Hrs: Tue&Thur 11 am-1:00 pm
Introduction to Asian Literature
Description:
We will read, discuss, and enjoy poems, plays, novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs
from Japanese, Chinese, and Indian literatures. All major texts have been quite recently
published, although the story setting may be a few decades in the past. Each of the three
segments (Indian, Chinese, Japanese) is built around the idea of a pairing: Salman Rushdie’s
autobiography is paired with his novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Reading these two
texts simultaneously will lead to the discovery of interesting parallels between Rushdie’s
life and the novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories, enabling us to appreciate the relationship
between political (and religious) power and the power of the pen. The next pairing also
concerns the political implications of writing: both of our Chinese writers—Gao Xingjian
and Mo Yan—have won the Nobel prize for literature, but while Xingjian’s work is
politically subversive and led to his expulsion from China, Mo Yan has managed to
accommodate himself with the Chinese Communist Party. We will see how the two writers’
differing outlook on the political functions of art colors their respective stories. Finally, we
will read Haruki Murakami’s novel After Dark, then turn to some of his short stories,
looking for ways to connect the long and short forms of fiction by this exciting artist. These
are some of the topics that will preoccupy us throughout this semester, although we will
naturally discuss any other issues that arise, including metafiction, gender (especially
violence against women), and cultural norms regarding marriage, hospitality, and altruism.
Assigned Texts:
INDIAN LITERATURE
- Indu Sundaresan, “The Most Unwanted” (Provided in Student Handbook)
- Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton*
- Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories*
CHINESE LITERATURE
- Gao Xingjian, Escape and The Man Who Questions Death*
- Mo Yan, Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh*
- Nobel lectures by Mo Yan & Gao Xingjian (in Course Pack)
- Article in NYRB “Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?” (in Course Pack)
JAPANESE LITERATURE
- Haruki Murakami, After Dark*
- Haruki Murakami, short stories (in Course Pack)
- Haikus (hand-out)
*These selections must be purchased at the start of the semester. The LIU bookstore stocks
all five assigned books.
1
Requirements & Grading:
1) Mid-term examination. 20% of final grade
2) Final examination. 20% of final grade.
3) Rushdie paper: write an essay exploring the points of contact between Salman
Rushdie’s own life (as reflected in Joseph Anton) and the novel Haroun and the Sea of
Stories. Contemplate what the two texts are telling us about the relationship between
art and politics. Minimum 3 pages. 20%.
4) Questions and Answers. Four times per semester students will answer questions
generated by their class mates. One class meeting prior to a Q&A session, one half of
the class must bring two written questions each and distribute them to members of
the other half of the class. The students receiving questions will prepare their
answers, which will be shared the following class session, as homework. Next time
the process is reversed, and group two will generate two questions per student to be
given to members of group one. Both questions and answers will be graded. 20% of
final grade.
5) WIFMI: “What I found most interesting.” Over the course of the semester, every
student will be called upon four times to make a comment in class about what he or
she found most interesting about the current reading assignment. One day prior to
being selected (a random process), the instructor will post the names of all students
who are to make a comment the following day under the “Announcements” tab on
blackboard.com. This announcement will alert the student that he/she has been
chosen to make a comment the next day. On the day the comment is due, the student
has to bring a written summary of the statement. Only if you make all four
statements after being called on can you receive credit for this segment. In other
words, there will be zero credit if you only deliver one or two answers during the
semester. You can have ONE FREE PASS, i.e. you can be excused once during the
semester after being called upon. Once you have used up the free pass, you will have
to answer the call from the instructor every time in order to get a grade. 20 %
6) Attendance at all class meetings is expected. If you have a valid excuse for an
absence, you must present a written statement to the instructor. If you accumulate
more than 6 absences (i.e. >6 absences) you will automatically fail the course.
2
Schedule:
Date
Text
Jan. 22
“The Most Unwanted”
Jan. 24
1. Joseph Anton
Jan. 29
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Joseph Anton
Jan. 31
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Joseph Anton
Feb. 5
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Joseph Anton:
Feb. 7
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Joseph Anton
Feb. 12
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Joseph Anton
Feb. 14
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
NO CLASS (MONDAY
Feb. 19
SCHEDULE)
1. Joseph Anton
Feb. 21
2. Haroun and the Sea of Stories
1. Escape
Feb. 26
2. Article on Tiananmen Square
1. Escape
Feb. 28
2. Nobel Lecture by Gao Xingjian
(Course Pack)
Mar. 5
The Man Who Questions Death
The Man Who Questions Death
Mar. 7
Mar. 9-17 SPRING BREAK
Mar. 19
Mar. 21
1. Shifu
Mar. 26
2. Nobel Lecture by Mo Yan (CP)
3. Article on Mo Yan in NYRB (CP)
Shifu
Mar. 28
Shifu
April 2
Shifu
April 4
Shifu
April 9
Haikus
April 11
After Dark
April 16
After Dark
April 18
After Dark
April 23
After Dark
April 25
1. “Sleep”
April 30
2. “The Second Bakery Attack”
May 2
May 7
May 8-14
3
Pages
All
1-47
15-43
47-75
47-75
112-135
79-93
139-160
97-126
160-170&180-194
129-156
206-214&230-249
159-176
Activities
Introduction
Questions Group A
due
281-297
179-211
1-49
All
50-67
All
Question & Answer
Session #1
76-111
Both plays
Questions Group B
Q & A Session #2
Rushdie Paper due
Review
Mid-Term Exam
vii-xxii
All
All
1-58
59-111
113-154
155-189
All
3-59
60-109
110-171
172-244
Both stories
Questions Group A
Q & A Session #3
Questions Group B
Q & A Session #4
Review
Wrapping up
Final Exam
Plagiarism & Academic Integrity
Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty:
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged and/or unauthorized use of any text—printed, audio, or
visual—that is not your own, whether or not that material is copyrighted. Properly speaking,
plagiarism is a type of identity theft, and it is punishable under LIU’s academic integrity
protocol. In the context of English 64, plagiarizing means the reproduction, in part or in whole,
of material that is not your own, without proper identification of the source. Specific acts of
plagiarism include:
1. Copying or downloading information from websites, whether in whole or in part,
whether copyrighted or not, and submitting that material in a paper as your own
without crediting the source or sources, i.e. without quotation marks AND
without parenthetical citation (MLA style).
2. Paraphrasing (putting in your own words) material from internet or print sources
without citing or documenting those sources.
3. Using quotations (word strings of 5 words or more) from other sources in your
papers without citing or documenting those sources.
4. Submitting a paper written for one professor to another professor. Submitting
work written by somebody else as your own work.
Detecting plagiarism:
Anybody who considers plagiarizing should know that PLAGIARISM DRAWS ATTENTION
TO ITSELF. Every month, several cases of plagiarism are discovered at LIU. Why is it so easy
to spot plagiarism? Consider the following passage:
Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina are almost universally acknowledged as
all-encompassing documents of human existence and supreme examples of the realistic
novel. When your reading this stuff, it really gets you thinking bout you’re own life.
Now ask yourself: is sentence one written in the same voice as sentence two? Considering the
stark differences in grammar, diction, and style, which sentence is likely plagiarized? Although
this example may look a bit too conspicuous, the shift in voice between a plagiarized passage
and one written by a student is often just as drastic. Instructors know instantly when the “tone”
shifts and a student begins to plagiarize, thereby borrowing a different voice (or rather: stealing
that voice’s identity). It’s just a matter of time until the source of that suspected stretch of words
is located through Google or other web-based tools. With anti-plagiarism services such as
Turnitin.com, even plagiarizing from other students (i.e. plagiarizing non-published work)
becomes easy to spot. In other words, anyone who plagiarizes must expect to be found out.
Consequences:
If you plagiarize for any of your assignments, you will receive an F for that assignment. If
you plagiarize in the course more than once, you will FAIL THE COURSE.
Why is it so important to avoid plagiarism and academic dishonesty?
Beyond these disciplinary consequences of plagiarism, engaging in plagiarism and academic
dishonesty—that is, not doing the work yourself—means that you spend a whole lot of money on
an education without truly becoming educated, since writing your own papers and creating your
own texts is a form of thinking and understanding new material, and of growing intellectually.
Opting for the short-cut of plagiarizing other people’s work is intellectually lazy, morally
reprehensible, and academically dishonest. DON’T DO IT!
4
Learning Goals for English 64
Read Proficiently:
• Students should demonstrate comprehension of the literal meaning of a literary text.
o Identify persona or narrative point of view.
o Describe the action and setting.
• Students should demonstrate ability to read a literary passage on more than one level.
o Describe the mood of a literary passage.
o Identify both literal and figurative meanings in a literary passage.
Write Proficiently:
• Students should develop a coherent interpretation of a text and support it with evidence
from the text.
o Write a clear, focused thesis.
o Marshal relevant quotations and evidence to support the thesis.
• Students should integrate sources effectively.
o Quote sources accurately.
o Paraphrase and integrate quotations.
Think Critically:
• Students should be able to grasp the premises and implications of a text that emerge
through analysis and interpretation.
o Identify the premise underlying a short prose text.
o Identify the implied meaning of a short sentence.
• Students should be able to formulate an individual and informed response that
reasonably builds on a text.
o Explicate a short sentence that is open to multiple interpretations.
o Interpret a piece of poetry or prose in a plausible manner
Be Knowledgeable about Literature:
• Students should be able to define basic literary terminology.
o Match a definition of a literary category such as genres or figures of speech with
the corresponding key term
o Write a definition of some literary terms
• Students should have a basic sense of cultural traditions that allows them to identify a
text as an artistic construct created in a specific historical moment.
o Arrange events or works on a chronological time line
o Match authors with their respective place of origin or national literature
5