Training in writing expository prose. Further instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

One of the defining themes of modern (and especially modernist) literature is alienation, and this has a number of different valences: senses of rejection, exclusion, or impossibility; feelings of dissatisfaction; rebellious, transgressive, or anti-social impulses. It’s a relatable feeling. And related to it is another seminal idea about modernism in relation to the notion of what Maurice Blanchot termed désœuvrement— “worklessness,” or “inoperativity,” or “idleness,” or “unworkability.” Wouldn’t you rather not work? And isn’t literature at least partly about being idle? We read literary ‘works,’ and sometimes we read them precisely because we don’t want to work. And sometimes literature doesn’t want to work either—in multiple senses of the word. So, then, an important strain of modernism is born from and allied with such feelings, nurturing the impulse for what is ‘not safe for work’—nurturing the impulse to be ‘not safe for work.’ This takes a variety of forms, and in this class we’ll trace some of them in order to locate something important and valuable in what is anti-social, lazy, defiant, or transgressive in literature. We’ll seek to understand a range of impulses against work, society, and propriety in both form and content, as an emotion or affect or theme essentially linked with a formal dynamic. Our readings will open onto the underlying pragmatic goal of this course, which is to facilitate the development of your critical reflection and writing skills. We will use the questions that this material poses of us, as well as those we pose of it, to construct persuasive and cogent arguments out of them. Building on what you have already learned in the first of the Reading and Composition courses, this second course will use the questions that this material poses of us, as well as those we pose of it, to develop your critical reflection as well as your writing and research skills that will culminate in a larger critical writing project at the end of the term.

Requisites

• Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature and Composition. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills