HUM 3320H
Honors Contemporary Multicultural Studies
Daniel White
COURSE OUTLINE: This course contributes to the
Contemporary American culture is marked by multifaceted changes in literature
and the arts, in science and technology, in personal values and identities, and
in the signs and symbols in terms of which we organize our lives.
“Our” civilization is now undergoing an extraordinary
transformation, one which could lead to a utopian technological paradise or to
ecological catastrophe--or to some disturbing combination of the two. Whatever
the present and future hold we are challenged by the complexity of our
experience to describe, reflect and act in new ways. Invention is now the
mother of necessity, science often sounds like fantasy, and artistry is
converging with technology. Human beings have discovered that they are not
necessarily the lords of creation but one among the community of living beings
that make up the biosphere, and that the earth is not the center of the
universe but, as architect Buckminster Fuller once said, a speck of pollen in
“outer” space. Western civilization has discovered that it is not
the measure of culture or the center, let alone the majority, of the world, and
men have been reminded that they must share power with the "weaker"
sex. In this topsy-turvy world, we might agree with Hamlet that "The
readiness is all." Perhaps some of us will be able to say in a tragicomic
tone, as R.E.M. did eons ago in MTV time, "It's the end of the world as we
know it, and I feel fine." Whether the result of our study will be tragic
or comic, or some combination of both, our intent is to come to terms with the
contemporary, some would say "postmodern," human condition.
Closely related to the issues of postmodernity are those of multiculturalism.
The
As in introduction to multiculturalism and the postcolonial condition, this semester we shall be reading Graham
Greene’s critical portrait of Vietnam War, The Quiet American, as well as the recent film by the same title;
connecting the dots of recent
history, we will next consider Marjance Satrapi’s graphical autobiography of her childhood
amidst U.S.-sponsored dictatorship and Islamic Revolution in Iran, Persepolis; next we will study Divakaruni Chitra Banerjee’s imaginative novel-portrait of
India’s meeting with America among the shops of Oakland, California in The
Mistress of Spices; we will share the anguish if Hatian
refugees and the rich imagination of a Caribbean culture in Edwidge
Denticat’s Krik? Krak!; and we will look into Haruki
Murakami's Dance, Dance, Dance, which fuses the imagination of
contemporary Japan with the popular culture of the US, including an aminated picture of futuristic Japan in Tetzuka
and Rintaro’s film Metropolis; then we will explore the outer reaches of cyberpunk in William Gibson's All
Tomorrow’s Parties—a light-sculpted a vision of a new counter
culture amidst the ruins of a post-quake LA. We will consider the multicultural
dimensions of Florida’s troubled history in John Sayles’ recent
film, Sunshine State as well as envision the posthuman
future in Momoru Oshi's Animé depiction of biotechnology in Ghost in the Shell,
We shall, finally, be viewing contemporary arts in the context of the computer
revolution via Christine Paul’s Digital
Art. Integrating our analysis of
these diverse cultural artifacts we will read various theoretical perspectives
provided by Easthope and McGowan’s A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Overall
we will engage in the richest possible understanding and appreciation of the
cultural diversity that makes up our emerging present.
Specific Course Requirements and Grades:
1) A series of reading/viewing/listening responses,out of class, each at least 500 words in length (2,000 words
minimum total) = 50% of final grade;
2) A final essay, 1,250 words in length,
on interdisciplinary subject matter = 30% of final grade.
3) A series of in-class, 250-word responses on daily assignments (750 words total)
= 10% of final grade.
4) A presentation (15 minutes): 10% of final grade.
Required Texts:
Denticat, Edwidge,
Krik? Krak!
Divakaruni, Chitra Banarjee, The
Mistress of Spices
Easthope, Anthony and Kate McGowan, A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader
Gibson, William, All Tomorrow’s
Parties
Greene, Graham, The Quiet American (Viking
Critical Edition, ISBN: 014024350X)
Murakami, Haruki, Dance, Dance, Dance
Paul, Christine, Digital Art
Satrapi, Marjane,
Required Films:
William Horberg,
Staffan Ahrenberg, The Quiet American
Joseph Mankiewicz, The Quiet American (1958)
Oshi, Mamoru, Ghost in the Shell
Errol Morris, The Fog
of War
Sayles, John, Sunshine State
Tetzuka, Osamu, and Rintaro
(Hatyashi Shigenyuki): Metropolis
Review of Tetzuka’s Metropolis:
http://www.theblackmoon.com/Deadmoon/metro.htm
NPR’s Report on Tezuka’s Metropolis, with images: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jan/metropolis/020124.metropolis.html
Maps and Images:
Ninh Binh--landscape, architecture, people
Phat Diem Map (locates
Phat Diem Cathedral exterior (shows bell tower from which Greene observed battle)
Vietnam Online - clickable maps
Syllabus
Week / Date (syllabus may be amended as
necessary; please follow online updates):
Week 1: May 10-12:
The Quiet American—film
and novel.
Monday, the film; 250 word
response;
Wednesday, film: The Quiet American (1958);
Greene’s novel, The Quiet American,
pp. 1-82; 193-211; Easthope & McGowan, Sec. 1:” Semiology,” Saussure and Barthes,
pp. 7-20. Christopher, Film Summary of The
Quiet American 1958, Greene pp. 303-306; Johnathan
Nashel, “
Week 2: May 17-19
Monday: Greene, The Quiet American, pp. 83-188;
212-240.
Wednesday: Satrapi,
Week 3: May 24-26
Monday: Divakaruni, The
Mistress of Spices, complete. 500 word response due;
Indian Art: Shiva
Nataraja; Shiva’s companions: Parvati,
Kali, Ganesh ; a bodhisattva
(Chinese Buddhist).
Wednesday: Easthope &
McGowan, Sec.
2: “Ideology,” Marx, Althusser, Said, pp. 41-66;250 word response
Oral
Presentations & Discussion
Week 4: May 31-June 2
Monday: Memorial Day
Film, John Sayles, Sunshine State; Interview with John
Sayles (on reserve, watch as you will).
Wednesday: Dentikat, Krik? Krak!, complete.
Easthope & McGowan, Sec. 3:
“Subjectivity,” Lacan, Kristeva, Folucault, Barthes, pp.
67-100; 500 word response due; supplementary
reading: Paul Farmer, ch. 1 from Pathologies of Power, "On
Suffering and Structural Violence"; "Who Removed Aristide?";
Interview
with Medical Anthropologist Paul Farmer.
Oral
Presentations & Discussion
Week 5: June 7-9
Monday: Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance, complete; Easthope & McGowan, Sec. 5: “Gender,” Freud, Cixous, Mulvey, Spivak, pp. 133-180Adorno, “On popular Music,”
pp. 211-222; 500 word response due;
Wednesday: Film: Tetzuka
and Rintaro, Metropolis;
Paul, Digital Art. 250 word response;
Oral
Presentations & Discussion
Week 6: June 14-16
Monday: Gibson,
All Tomorrow’s Parties,
complete. Easthope
& McGowan, Sec.
4, “Difference,” Derrida, pp. 101-132; Sec. 6,
Postmodernism,” Lyotard, Jameson, Baudrillard, pp. 181-206; 250 word response.
Wednesday: Paul, Digital Art; film, Mamoru, Ghost in the Shell. 1250 Word Final Essay Due;
Oral Presentations
& Discussion
Week 7: June 21—last day of class:
Oral
Presentations & Discussion; final papers returned: