UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Prof. Bruce Harvey
AML 5505: American Romanticism: In Search of Sublimity
Summer B 2003, Tuesday and Thursday 6:25-9:05
Home phone: to be given in class
harveyb@fiu.edu
HOME Overview Syllabus Policies Resources Discussion
ASSIGNMENTS & POLICIES
Class Participation:
I will give mini-lectures to highlight
important issues, but most of the class will be discussion oriented. Your
participation will be worth 20% of your final grade. Missing
class, especially as a graduate student, is considered very poor form: don't do
it. If you miss two days, we will have a serious discussion. If you
miss three, you will not be able to pass the course.
Discussion Threads:
I will set up the discussion thread weblink (only the class can access
it) the first week of class. You may initiate topics ("threads")
or respond to topics I or other students propose. Now and again, I may post
significant quotes from theorists or critics to stimulate discussion You should submit and
read postings routinely, but I don't want
it to become only busy work for you. You should more or less have a meaty
paragraph/exchange for each of our major texts/authors. I will monitor the dialogue periodically
(and perhaps occasionally intervene)--but this is intended to be your forum, not
mine. Heated debate is fine; but remember that basic rules of etiquette
apply--be polite and avoid vulgarities. Respectable grammar, spelling, and
sentence style are expected. About midway through the semester, I'll give you
feedback about whether your online discussion up to that point equals an "A,"
"B," and so forth. If the online discussion creates awkwardness for you in any
form, please talk to me and we'll work the problem out. The online discussion
equals 20% of your final grade. For those of you who do not have easy access
to the Internet at home, there are many facilities on campus, available
virtually all the time (logging in for 20 minutes before or after class once or
twice a
week would likely satisfy this portion of the course requirements).
Paper:
You have one 15 page (or longer) paper to turn in, due in final form no later than Dec. 2, which develops a thesis about one of the texts, supported by secondary materials. I will be happy to consult with you extensively about your project, and, towards that end, I request the following:
--by Sept. 30, tell me via email what author/text you want to write on.
--by Oct. 7, arrange to speak to me or email me about a possible focus on your selected text (I'll help you shape it, propose avenues of inquiry, suggest a few secondary sources, and so forth). Note: the worse thing you can do is to go to the library, without topic or tentative thesis idea in hand, in the hopes of finding one. If you read, brood, and reread, you will likely come up with a thesis that turns out to be original, even if you have not yet turned to other scholars to discover whether your ideas, in fact, are original or not. Grappling with the text comes first; informing your argument with received wisdom comes second.
--by Nov. 15, submit a draft version of your essay, worth 20% of your course grade. This should be a substantially cooked paper, but absent full dialogue with/use of secondary materials and perhaps excluding some details of analysis. The final version will expand via engagement with criticism and via the fine-tuning/elaborations that you develop in the interim. With the draft, please give me, as well, a tentative bibliography (5-8 entries will suffice) of secondary criticism or historical/cultural materials to be integrated into the final version. My goal is for you to complete a confident "take" on a text, before you worry too much about how to include other critical voices. The final version, worth 20% of your grade, will be assessed for improvement, stylistic polish, and overall scholarly cogency (note, however, that students who show earnest work on the first version and significantly improve in the final version typically get rewarded with the latter being weighted more in terms of the overall course grade).
--by Dec. 2, submit a hardcopy and email copy of the final version of your essay. I will email feedback to you within the next week or so.
Alternatives to Paper: The schedule of due dates remains the same as for the regular paper.
--MA: it is useful for me/future students to have good links for the "Resource" or "Go" sections of this site. Consider writing an essay covering key historical, cultural, biographical, critical, etc., aspects of our authors (e.g., real whaling in Melville's day; psychoanalytical interpretations of Poe's tales). These would be based upon research and be semi-encyclopedic/semi-journalistic in tone and style; analytical skill in organizing information would be needed, but not an "original" thesis.
--MFA: if you find the exchanges/discussion threads useful and stimulating, two or three students may isolate themselves in a discussion thread and develop a dialogue of profundity and wit over an author/issue (research of the issue, literary allusions, revision all will be expected). This discussion thread would take on an extended life on private email. If you are interested in this option, you need to coordinate it with one/two other students and immediately speak to me. You will be graded individually, although the project will be the result of collaboration.
--SEC ED: if it would help your intellectual growth or be of practical consequence, develop a comprehensive "lesson-plan" for one of the texts.
Oral Report:
The last three class periods are reserved for 15-minute oral presentations of your paper topic. Find one major intellectual/artistic/cultural crux, tension, or methodological quandary, etc. that you confronted (are confronting) in your essay and present the relevant issues to the class. You might focus on a passage from the text you're analyzing, present a meta-critique of several scholarly takes on a text, or provide any other similar anchoring aid that will allow for focus and classmate involvement. The report will be worth 20% of your final grade.
MISCELLANEOUS
There is no final exam.
I am always available to meet with you during office hours to talk more about the readings or other course matters. We should chat very early in the semester if you feel new to the art of literary or cultural analysis and research. For questions or to set up a conference outside of my regular office hours, you may also call me at my home number (before 10:00 PM), leave a message on my office phone, or email me.
A graduate-level seminar is not simply a more intense 4000-level undergraduate course. I look upon you as a potential teacher or colleague-in-the-making and thus, although I'm still leading the class, democracy more or less rules. This means that while typically I will have an agenda, I have no problem with the class veering off into other illuminating avenues. I also expect more active and regular participation than in an undergraduate class. Passivity on your part--waiting for me to guide you to important passages and points--is inappropriate. A high degree of intellectual inquisitiveness and resourcefulness is assumed of all students in a graduate seminar.