UNDERGraduate LeCTURES, University of Toronto, 2020-21 (SEPTEMBER-APRIL)
ENG140 Literature for Our Time is a first-year course at the University of Toronto that explores how recent literature in English responds to our world in poetry, prose, and drama. In the fall term we’ll visit some famous landmarks of early and mid-twentieth-century literature: London Bridge on a winter morning, a lighthouse off the west coast of Scotland, a sunlit living room in suburban New England, and a wave-washed beach in South America, among others. In the spring term, our guides will be closer to our own time, living writers and more recent books. In both terms, emphases will include literature’s reasons for being, its formal qualities, historical context, relation to other media, and relevance to our moment in time.
Because of COVID-19 lecture and tutorials will be conducted (or at least begin?) entirely online. For lectures we will be using Zoom, versions of which for desktop or phone you can download from https://zoom.us/. I have a paid version; you only need the free version. It works on a phone, but optimal setup is a computer (desktop or notebook) with a decent camera and microphone and a good internet connection. From experience, we need to see and hear each other for this to work, especially in tutorials. Your tutorials will use Zoom or Bb Collaborate, available within Quercus.
Lectures, including your participation, will be recorded on video and will be available to students in the course for viewing remotely and after each session. Tutorials will not be recorded. Course videos and materials belong to your instructor, the University, and/or other sources depending on the material and are protected by copyright. Please don’t download or share lecture recordings without my permission.
Books
First term: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems (Broadview); Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Broadview); Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Grove); Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Anchor); Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (Vintage); Gabriel García Márquez, Leaf Storm and Other Stories (Harper); Sylvia Plath, Ariel (Harper). Second term: John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Dramatists Play Service); Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (Fourth Estate); Canisia Lubrin, Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn); Sara Peters, I Become a Delight to My Enemies (Strange Light); Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark (Picador); Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach (Vintage); Jillian Tamaki, Boundless (Drawn & Quarterly). Print copies of the books will be available for online order and delivery from the UofT Bookstore.
Syllabus
All lectures are Friday afternoons 2-4 pm. Tutorials meet as per Acorn. Note that tutorials do not begin until the third week of classes.
September 11
Lecture: Introduction
September 18
Lecture: T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
September 25
Tutorial: T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Lecture: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
October 2
Tutorial: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Lecture: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
October 9
Tutorial: Assignment #1; The Waste Land
Lecture: Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Modern Times (film)
October 16
Tutorial: Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Lecture: Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
October 23
Tutorial: Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Lecture: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
October 30
Tutorial: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Lecture: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
November 6
Tutorial: Making an Argument
Lecture: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
November 9-13: Reading Week
November 20
Essay #1 due
Tutorial: Nabokov, Lolita
Lecture: Gabriel García Márquez
November 27
Tutorial: García Márquez
Lecture: Sylvia Plath, Ariel
December 4
Tutorial: Sylvia Plath, Ariel
Lecture: Sylvia Plath, Ariel
January 8
Hedwig & The Angry Inch
January 15
Tutorial: Essay #1 review
Lecture: Hedwig & The Angry Inch
January 22
Tutorial: Hedwig & The Angry Inch
Lecture: McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
January 29
Essay #2 due
Tutorial: Remarkable Things
Lecture: Lubrin, Voodoo Hypothesis
February 5
Tutorial: Voodoo Hypothesis
Lecture: Peters, I Become a Delight to my Enemies
February 12
Tutorial: I Become a Delight to my Enemies
Lecture: I Become a Delight to my Enemies
February 15-19: Reading Week
February 26
Lecture: Powers, Plowing the Dark (no tutorial)
March 5
Tutorial: Plowing the Dark
Lecture: Plowing the Dark
March 12
Tutorial: Robinson, Monkey Beach
Lecture: Monkey Beach
March 19
Essay #3 due
Tutorial: Exam Strategies
Lecture: Monkey Beach
March 26
Tutorial: Tamaki, Boundless
Lecture: Boundless
April 14-16: final exam (tentatively): open-book, online, three hours over three days