ENG

181-003: Writing about Literature

Instructor: Lisa Chinn



Spring 2013
Time: MWF 11:45-12:35
Place: Callaway, N204
Email: lchinn@emory.edu
Office Hours: Mondays 12:45-2; Wednesdays 12:45-2 at Steady Hand Pour House
Class website: English 181:Notes from the Underground can be found here:
http://www.lisachinn.com/sample-page/eng-181-writing-about-literature/

Texts:

Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing. Claire Kehrwald Cook. Modern Language Association of
America, 1985.

Writing in Response. Matthew Parfitt. Bedford/ St. Martins, 2012.

All other materials will be in pdf form on the class website or emailed to you a week in advance.

Course Objectives:

What is a text? What does it mean to read? How do we read texts that are not in the traditional form of a
book, newspaper article, or even the newer tradition of online publication? This writing intensive course
will examine little magazines and other ephemera of the 20th and 21st centuries that change the way
individuals interact with various forms of print and digital cultures. My goal for you is to come away
from this class knowing how to critically think, how to translate critical thinking into critical writing, and
how to write persuasive sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Along the way, you will also learn to use
tools that will help in your journey through college, namely, using tools like Digital Storytelling, Google
Maps, timelines, and other digital modes of expression.

I focus English 181 on developing reading, writing, and critical thinking skills to prepare you for future
academic writing and digital intelligence. We will examine Little Magazines and webzines in the hopes
that you will come away from the class with a better knowledge of cultural production, the avant-garde,
and such notions as publics, counterpublics, and subcultures. These skills are invaluable for you future
academic endeavors, thus attendance and participation are two key components to your success in class.
And developing solid research skills will keep you from any problems with plagiarism.

Class Format:

Participation and discussion are two major components of this course. Thus, if you have more than three
absences, your grade will automatically fall one letter grade. If you have more than six absences, you will
automatically get an F for the course. If you cannot meet these requirements, I encourage you to drop
the course before the end of the Add/ Drop period. If you arrive fifteen minutes late, youll
automatically be counted absent.

Technology policy:
While I encourage you to bring your laptop, iPad, or other reading device to class, I do not allow phones
(smart or otherwise) in the classroom. You will turn off you phones for the duration of class. If I see you
using your phone or attempting to use your phone, you will be automatically dismissed from class and
receive no participation points for the day.

Academic Honesty Policy:
Emory University is committed to academic integrity in all its practices. The faculty value intellectual
integrity and a high standard of academic conduct. Activities that violate academic integrity undermine
the quality and diminish the value of educational achievement. Cheating on papers, tests, or other
academic works is a violation of Emory rules. No student shall engage in behavior that, in the judgment
of the instructor of the class, may be construed as cheating. This may include, but is not limited to,
plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty such as the acquisition without permission of tests or
other academic materials and/or distribution of these materials and other academic work. This includes
students who aid and abet as well as those who attempt such behavior. The instructor reserves the right
to use the resources of the College to check student work for plagiarism.
Assignments:
Timeline on Dipity.com, research three Little Magazines, building a website, report on historical
documents, writing your own manifesto, digital storytelling project, along with research paper and the
end of term, and blogs.

Evaluation:

Assignment sequence #1:



15% final grade

Assignment sequence #2:




25% final grade

Assignment sequence #3:




25% final grade

Digital Storytelling:





10% final grade

Final research paper:





15% final grade

Blogs, attendance, participation:



10% final grade

Emory University Grading Scale:


A=4.0 A-=3.7 B+=3.3 B=3.0 B-=2.7 C+=2.3 C=2.0 C-=1.7 D+=1.3 D=1.0 F=0.0



Class Schedule:

Date: Reading Assignments:

Unit 1: Modernism: Futurism,

High modernism, vorticism,
Imagism

Due Dates and In-Class Activities:

1/16

Introduction to Little Magazines

1/18

How to Read a Magazine:

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/tea
ching/introduction/intro3_howt
o.html

MLK Day- NO CLASS

The Dial; visit from MARBL

1/21

1/23

-From Bornsteins Material

The Dial; visit from David Morgen
Modernism: How to read a page:
modernism and material
textuality
-Parfitt: Introduction, 1-18

1/25

Benjamin, Walter The Work of The Dial

Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction
-Parfitt: Reading with a
Purpose, 19-43
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/ren BLAST

1/28

der.php?view=mjp_object&id=mj
p.2005.00.094

-Parfitt: Active Reading 4452

1/30

2/1

2/4

Small Magazines, by Ezra

Pound

-Parfitt: Active Reading 5255

Janet Lyon, Strange
Bedfellows: Suffragettes and
Vorticists before the War
-Parfitt: Active Reading 5662
From Bornsteins Material
Modernism: Pressing women:
Marianne Moore and the
networks of modernism

BLAST

BLAST and Exile

The Little Review

2/6

2/8
2/11
2/13

-Parfitt: Further Strategies 6368

Alan Golding, The Dial, the
Little Review, and the Dialogics
of Modernism, American
Periodicals 15.1 (2005): 42-55.
-Parfitt: Further Strategies 6984
-Parfitt: Further Strategies 8489
-Parfitt: Writing to Discover
and Develop Ideas 91-110
Anne E. Carroll, Protest and
Affirmation: Composite Texts
in the Crisis,
American Literature 76.1
(March 2004): 89-116.

The Little Review

The Little Review

The Black Cat/ The Experimental Review
The Crisis

2/15

From Carrolls Word, Image, and The Crisis / Fire!!

the New Negro: The Importance Final Periodical Report DUE
of Multiple Identities: Fire!! As
an Avant-garde Arts Magazine

Unit 2: Projective Verse, the

Beats, the hipster avant-garde,
Civil Rights

2/18
2/20

From Warners Publics and
Counterpublics: Introduction
http://realitystudio.org/bibliogr
aphic-bunker/yugen

Black Mountain Review

Black Mountain Review/Yugen

-Parfitt: Developing an
Argument 110-120
2/22

From Warners Publics and
Counterpublics: Publics and
Counterpublics

Yugen

-Parfitt: Developing an
Argument 120-133
2/25

2/27
3/1

Lee: Avant-Garde Poetry as

Subcultural Practice: Mailer and
di Primas Hipster

-Parfitt: Developing an
Argument 133-150
-Parfitt: Organizing the Essay
150-161
From Warners Publics and
Counterpublics: Styles of
Intellectual Publics

The Floating Bear

The Floating Bear

Intrepid

3/ 4

-Parfitt: Organizing an Essay

161-170
-From All Poets Welcome The
Aesthetics of the Little 57-90

Intrepid; Gemini

-Parfitt: Organizing an Essay

170-189
3/6

3/8

-From All Poets Welcome The

Aesthetics of the Little 90-122

-Parfitt: Organizing an Essay

190-215
-Parfitt: Crafting Sentences
215-238

Blue Beat; Measure

City Lights Journal/ Audit

3/11-
3/15

SPRING BREAK

3/ 18

Silliman, et al.: Aesthetic

Tendency and the Politics of
Poetry: A Manifesto

Audit

-Parfitt: Writing with Style

239-251
3/20

The Situationist Manifesto (pdf)

http://libcom.org/library/internationale-situationiste

3/22

Dogme95 manifesto:
http://cinetext.philo.at/repor
ts/dogme_ct.html
-Parfitt: Writing with Style
251-264

Second Assignment Sequence DUE

3/25

From Warners Publics and

Counterpublics: The Mass Public
and the Mass Subject

3/27

-Parfitt: Conducting Research

267-283
-Parfitt: Conducting Research
284-295

3/29

Unit 3: Digital Subcultures:

webzines

4/1

-Parfitt: Conducting Research

296-307

4/3

4/5

Dissent
Michael H-M presentation

Poetry SZ:
http://www.poetrysz.net/

From Ernsts Digital Memory and the Santa Fe Poetry Broadside:
Archive: Let There Be Irony:
http://sfpoetry.org/
Cultural History and Media

Archeology in Parallel Lines (pdf)
-Parfitt: Conducting Research The Drunken Boat:
308-318
http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/


4/8

The Transcendental Friend:

http://www.morningred.com/friend/

4/19

The Transcendental Friend:

http://www.morningred.com
/friend/
-Parfitt: Conducting Reserch
319-328
Moria, a poetry journal:
http://www.moriapoetry.com
/
-Parfitt: Documentation 329346
Photojournale
http://www.photojournale.co
m/
-Parfitt: Documentation 347352
Perihelion:
http://webdelsol.com/Perihel
ion/
-Parfitt: Documentation 353362
Maverick Magazine:
http://www.maverickmagazi
ne.com/

4/22

Digital Storytelling project presentations

4/24

Field Trip! Atlanta Zine

Library

4/26

Digital storytelling project presentations

4/29

Digital storytelling project presentations

5/13

End of Term

4/10

4/12

4/15

4/17

Moria, a poetry journal:

http://www.moriapoetry.com/

Photojournale
http://www.photojournale.com/

Perihelion:
http://webdelsol.com/Perihelion/
DUE: Manifesto on website
Maverick Magazine: http://www.maverickmagazine.com/

Digital storytelling project presentations

Resources
Course Accessibility Statement:
Emory University seeks to provide effective services and accommodations for individuals with

documented disabilities. If you need an accommodation because of a documented disability, you are
required to register with the Office of Disability Services at the beginning of the semester. If you will
require assistance during an emergency evacuation, notify your instructor immediately. Look for
evacuation procedures posted in your classrooms. Please contact the Office of Disability Services by
phone: 404-727-9877 or by email: www.ods.emory.edu

Emory Writing Center:
The Emory Writing center offers tutoring and writing instruction as well as clarification for assignments.
You are highly encouraged to visit the writing center on a regular basis. The writing center is located in
N212 Callaway. You can also reach them by phone: 404-727-6451. Their website is
www.writingcenter.emory.edu. The center is open M-Th 10-8, F 10-3, and Sun. 1-8.

International Student Academic Center:

If you are an international student working with English as a your second language, I encourage you to
take advantage of the International Student Academic Center, located at SAAC 310 on the Clairmont
Campus. Tutoring, workshops, and groups to practice English conversation and other skills are available.
Contact Jane OConnor (jcoconn@emory.edu) or Denise Alvarez (denise.alvarez@emory.edu). Their
website is: http://www.epass.emory.edu and select ESL.