SoD Syllabus 2023-24
Term 1
note: If there is a link to an Amazon, then please purchase the text! If there is a link to a video, watch it. If there is link to a file, download it!
Week 1. Introduction
C21 US writing and culture
Week 2. Neoliberalism
watch: “Fuck You, BuddyLink opens in a new window” from The Trap (2007), dir. Adam Curtis
Read:
1. Mark Fisher, selections from Capitalist Realism: Is There No AlternativeLink opens in a new window? (Zero Books, 2009).
2. Ivor Southwood, selections from Non-Stop InertiaLink opens in a new window (Zero Books, 2011). Read pages 1-30.
3. Dale Beran, “4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of TrumpLink opens in a new window”
4. Philip Mirowski, "A Short Course in Neoliberal Economic Doctrine"
Week 3. Ways of looking at Time and Cultures of Solidarity
1. Gerard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, from The Crisis of NeoliberalismLink opens in a new window (Harvard UP, 2011): 7-32, 45-48.
2. Michael Denning, selections from The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth CenturyLink opens in a new window, 3-21.
Week 4. Graphic Narratives
1. Scott McCloud, selection from Understanding ComicsLink opens in a new window
2. Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing is MonstersLink opens in a new window (2017)
optional
1. The Bite That Changed My LifeLink opens in a new window
2.THE EMIL FERRIS INTERVIEW: MONSTERS, ART AND STORIES.part 1Link opens in a new window
Week 5. Microaggressions
1. Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American LyricLink opens in a new window (Graywolf, 2014), parts I-V, pages 5-79.
library ebook hereLink opens in a new window
2. microagressionLink opens in a new window - wikipedia
3. Sofia Samatar, “Skin FeelingLink opens in a new window"
4. Jason Reynolds (2022), Oxygen MaskLink opens in a new window
5. #blacklivesmatter videos,Black Lives MatterLink opens in a new window please watch (30 mins total)
Week 6. Reading Week
Week 7. Apocalypse I
1. Rumaan Alam, Leave the World BehindLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (2020)
library ebook hereLink opens in a new window
2. Atlanta, s03e04, "The Big Payback"
linkLink opens in a new window
Week 8. Apocalypse II
1. Annaleee Newitz, Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass ExtinctionLink opens in a new window (2013)
2. The Collapse (to be provided)
Week 9. The New Table-Top Role-Playing Games: Queer Horror
1. watch Avery Alder: The Woman, the Career, and the GamesLink opens in a new window (Ropeconn 2022)
2. Avery Alder, Monsterhearts 2 Link opens in a new window(2018)
3. Watch selection of Gehenna Valley's actual gameplay of Monsterhearts 2Link opens in a new window.
Week 10. Last Girl?
1. Carol Clover, "Her body, himself: Gender in the slasher filmLink opens in a new window"
2. Barbarian (to be provided)
linkLink opens in a new window
Term 2
Week 1. Essay Writing
writing packet download hereLink opens in a new window
Week 2. Narrating Trauma
1. Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr, We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural ProductionLink opens in a new window (2022)
e-book download from library hereLink opens in a new window
2. Ben Auden Roswell, Together We Write Private CathedralsLink opens in a new window
Week 3. Learning how to make Comics Even if you don't know how to draw
1. Lynda Barry, Making ComicsLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (2019) pages 1-80; 89-90; 94-102; 112-113; 140-142 (key!); AND ten other pages of your choice
2. Lynda Barry, in class we'll watcha 50 minute edited version of Drawing with Lynda BarryLink opens in a new window
Week 4. Mass Prison Industrial Complex videos
Watch
1. segment 1Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window
"Mass Incarceration, Visualized”; "Jim Crow Juvenile Justice”; "Slavery in Effect: A History Design Studio Briefling”
2. segment 2Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window
"Alliance for Safety and Justice”; "Rethinking Incarceration”; Angela Davis interview
3. Read:
a) Angela Davis et al, pages from Abolition.Feminism.NowLink opens in a new window
b) Ruth Gilmore Wilson, pages from Abolition GeographyLink opens in a new window
c) Pages from Stay Woke: A Peoples Guide to Making All Black Lives MatterLink opens in a new window
Week 5. Prison Narratives
1. Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr. "Martin Luther King at Zion HillLink opens in a new window"
2. Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., "MLK speaks to his daughter about Racism: Fun TownLink opens in a new window"
3. Watch How a Sit-In Movement Started by Black Students Changed Activism ForeverLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window
4. Read all of (including the acknowledgement at the end)
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel BoysLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window (2020)
Week 6. Reading Week
Week 7. Digital Life
1. Charles Duhigg, “How Companies Learn Your SecretsLink opens in a new window”
2. Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future WeekLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window
read chapters 1, 2, 4, 8, 10
library e-book hereLink opens in a new window
3. pages from Nick Couldry, The Costs of ConnectionLink opens in a new window
Week 8. To Decolonize?
1. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, "Decolonization is not a MetaphorLink opens in a new window" (2012)
2. Tapji Garba and Sara-Maria Sorentino, "Slavery is a Metaphor: A Critical Commentary on Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang's 'Decolonization is not a MetaphorLink opens in a new window" (2022)
3. Stephen Shapiro, "Decolonizing the Zombie: I Walked with a Zombie's Critique of Centrist LiberalismLink opens in a new window" (2022).
4. Mahmood Mamdani, "Introduction" from Neither Settler nor Native The Making and Unmaking of Permanent MinoritiesLink opens in a new window
Optional
Taiaiake Alfred, "The Psychic Landscape of Contemporary ColonialismLink opens in a new window"
Taiaiake Alfred, "From Red Power to ResurgenceLink opens in a new window"
Week 9. Who is a Superhero?
I am Virgo, to be provided
links hereLink opens in a new window