Fall09 LIT4093
Currents in Contemporary Literature

This course on "Contemporary Literature" will begin with Proust (Swann's Way) and Kafka (The Trial). No literate person—and certainly no "important" writer—since the 1920s can fail to have confronted Proust or Kafka except as a kind of evasion or willful descent into ignorance. The next hundred years of narrative literature has been a response to their narrative experiments and discoveries. Other writers could be likewise adduced (Joyce most obviously) but we will anchor ourselves in Proust and Kafka and then quickly move toward the present (and perhaps at some point determine whether the present is the means by which the past appropriates us, or vice versa). Works likely to be assigned include: The Voyeur (Robbe-Grillet), Lolita (Nabokov), The Loser (Bernhart), Blow-Up and Other Stories (Cortázar) I Served the King of England (Hrabal), Fiskadoro (Denis Johnson) Blindness (Saramago), The Road (Cormac McCarthy), Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), The Amulet or Last Evenings on Earth (Roberto Bolaño). The course shares an assumption with the books assigned: reading is one the best things you can do with your time and while reading provokes thought, it should be fun too. In other words, don't let Proust scare you; we'll work through him and the rest together and have fun while we're at it too.

Begin with Proust?
BEGIN?

I mean, the professor is supposed to be amazing and this class is like, tailor made for my interests, but begin with Proust? I'm scurred and cuhfused.

you will fail, no doubt

tl;dr

but take it.

I'm a literary boy wonder.

your arrogance will be your downfall

I'm not Johnny Tremain, I'm not gonna burn my hand off.

that is why you fail

i wouldnt take it as me

but it's in your hands sir

I really want to and I'll feel like a pussy if I don't, but I'm also taking Literary theory, Readings from Early Iberia (In Spanish), Symbolic Logic, and either an Advanced Poetry workshop or Renaissance Prose and Poetry. Plus, I'll be an RA again, I'll be working 6 hours a week as an undergrad research assistant, I'll be teaching a class, and I want to, you know, have friends.

:/

But I want to take this class more than anything.

then fucking do it

But I want to sleep at times. I'm already on like...5-6 hours a night.

There doesn't seem to be a unit on R.L. Stine. So it's probably not worth your time.

ghost beach was my favorite

i did a unit similar but a little different when i was at uni and i loved it
you are a word nerd who digs literature you should absolutely take this course.

yeah, if you don't push yourself, how are you ever going to know what you are made of?

Who is the Professor? In my senior seminar class last spring we read three of the books you mentioned and while the books were a bit difficult at times the professor made it a very enjoyable experience and well worth the effort.

This should be the title for Mickey's term paper for the class.

You have to do it then. The class that you have to step outside of your comfort zone for is the one that will push you further than you think you can go right now. Especially if you really want to take it. The sense of accomplishment alone will be worth it. Anything you learn (and if it changes your perspective on things at all) will just be a bonus.

just because hes from bahstan doesnt mean you have to call him names

Tim Parrish.