Engl.
653: Syllabus
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Recommended Readings: All recommended readings listed on the syllabus are available on the Internet. You may access them at the following address: http:\\www.runet.edu\~mpbaker\653links.html. Articles are also available by clicking on the "Links to Resources" above. If you do not have Internet access, you may use the computer lab in the library. Printers are also available for your use in the library if you wish to make hard copies of the materials.
1/12 "In the Land of I Don't Remember":
The "Official Story" and Women's Counter-Memory
Women Bearing
Witness: "History"/Story; Re-Membering, Renaming and Reclaiming the
Past; the "Return of the Repressed"; Hauntings, and Healings
Course Objectives and Procedures
Viewing: The Official Story, 1985 Academy Award Winning film about Argentina's "Dirty War" against "subversives" and the disappearance of 30,000 civilians
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for the following texts: Rigoberta Menchu Tum, I, Rigoberta Menchu; Marjorie Agosin, "Passion and Memory: Women Writers of Latin America" in Ashes of Revolt, 96-109; one of the contextual readings listed below.
Contextual Readings (available on-line.
Click on the hyperlink):
Amnesty
International Reports on Human Rights in Guatemala
A Massacre
in Xaman, Guatemala
A Human Rights History of Guatemala (An informative overview of Guatemala’s human rights record and history of the republic)
1/19
"This is ... the testimony of my
people": Women's Testimonios as Witness, Collective Memory,
Critical Consciousness, and Resistance
Re-Membering Guatemala’s Indigenous Culture: I, Rigoberta Menchu;
The Politics of Memory in Latin American Literature: Marjorie Agosin, "Passion and Memory," Ashes of Revolt, 96-109.
Viewing: Allan Francovich's The Houses are Full of Smoke: Guatemala
Possible Seminar Presentation Topics (you can combine these in any way the group wishes): Group presentation on the history of human rights abuses in Guatemala, starting with the 1954 U.S. sponsored military coup. Some members of the group might branch out into related materials, such as the role of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, GA, in training military human rights abusers in other Latin American countries as well as in Guatemala; or the genre of testimonio literature in Latin America.
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for the following texts: Alicia Partnoy, The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival ; Marjorie Agosin, "So We Will Not Forget: Literature and Human Rights in Latin America" in Ashes of Revolt, 64-79; one of the contextual readings listed below.
Contextual Readings (available on-line):
Interpreting Survivor Testimony (This one I highly recommend)
"El Desaparecido" ("Disappearance")
School of the Americas Takes you to Google’s links on SOA. Use the derechos.org search link in Google to find graduates from the SOA who are part of various Latin American repressive military regimes.
1/26 Survivors'
Testimonios: Bearing Witness to Life amid Death
Music of Argentina: Mercedes Sosa
Testimonio as Resistance and Survival:
Alicia Partnoy, The Little School
Memory as Resistance: Marjorie Agosin, "So We Will Not Forget," Ashes of Revolt, 64-79.
Possible Seminar Presentation Topics: Group seminar presentation on Argentina, the "Dirty War," Disappearances, U. S. Role in the Dirty War and U. S. support for the military junta before and during the Dirty War. Again, some members might want to consider related topics, such as the role of the School of the Americas in training human rights violators in Latin America. Torture and torture tactics is another related topic.
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for the following texts: Marjorie Agosin, Dear Anne Frank; Agosin, Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile 1974-1994 (in Readings for ENGL 653); Agosin, "How to Speak with the Dead" in Ashes of Revolt, 53-63; one contextual reading from the list below.
Contextual Readings:
National Security Archive: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup in Chile A must see web site containing 16,000 declassified government documents that prove U. S. complicity in the Chilean coup
The
Crimes of Augusto Pinochet
2/2 The
Voice of the Shuttle and Procne's Song: Denouncing Repression & Violence
Viewing: Night and Fog
The Arpillaristas of Chile--Mothers Bearing Witness: Agosin, Tapestries of Hope, Threads
of Love: The Arpillera Movement in Chile 1974-1994 (in Readings);
Agosin, “How to Speak with the Dead” in Ashes of Revolt , 53-63;
Dorfman, “Dedication” and “Prologue” from Exorcising Terror (in Readings)
Re-Membering Anne Frank--Holocaust Memories and the Trauma of Military
Repression in Chile: Agosin, Dear
Anne Frank
Possible Seminar Presentations: Group seminar presentations on Chile, U.S./CIA sponsored military coup under General Pinochet and overthrow of Allende, human rights abuses in Chile, the role of Henry Kissinger and President Nixon in the military coup under Pinochet. Someone might want to cover the most recent developments in Chile now that Pinochet is finally being charged with kidnap, murder and crimes against humanity during the so-called Caravan of Death during his military dictatorship; (this topic could be presented on 2/23 if no one covers it this week).
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and
insights" for Marjorie Agosin, The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
2/9 Via
Dolorosa of "Las Locas": The Mother's Circle in Plaza de Mayo / Problems
and Pit-Falls of Representing the Pain of Others
Revolutionary Motherhood: Marjorie
Agosin, The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
Be especially attentive to all the writings of Senora Renee S. de Epelbaum in the second half of the book. How does her self-representation compare to Agosin’s representation of her subject?
Viewing: Las Madres de la Plaza
de Mayo/The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Possible Seminar Presentation: Torture, human rights abuses and recent U. S. interrogation policies in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention centers. The whole question of international human rights and anti-torture treaties as well as the globalization of justice in response to crimes against humanity—in other words the question of the struggle for a new global system of justice-- is another related topic someone might address. (Ariel Dorfman’s Exorcising Terror is pertinent here.) Also pertinent are the “torture” memos issued by Alberto Gonzales in which he called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and “obsolete” in view of the U. S. War on Terror, as well as the U. S. refusal to recognize the international war crimes tribunal. Also pertinent is the push to grant “impunity” to former military human rights abusers in countries that have returned to democracy (Chile, Guatemala, Argentina), in other words, to grant them immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity.
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare “probes
and insights” for Marta Traba, Mothers and Shadows and the contextual
reading below:
Contextual Reading:
Operation
Condor, Pinochet’s involvement, and U. S. complicity
2/16 Bearing Witness to Repression and Terror in
the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay)
Marta Traba, Mothers and Shadows
Possible Seminar Presentations: Operation Condor, the (so-called) counterterrorism strategy used in the Southern Cone with support of U. S./CIA intelligence. The objectives of, methods used, justification for, and countries involved in Operation Condor. One member of the group might want to research the recent criminal prosecutions by the new Argentine government against former military leaders who participated in Operation Condor or other aspects of the Dirty War and the military regime following it. Related to this is the work of the Spanish judge, Balthazar Garzon, who is now working to bring to justice military leaders involved in historical human rights abuses in Latin America (including Guatemala, Argentina, and Chile as well as other countries).
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and one contextual reading from the below list.
Contextual Readings:
Chile 1964-1973 A good overview of the U. S. sponsored coup and government policies leading up to it as Allende became a more popular candidate for the presidency of Chile
Salvador Allende's Final Address to the Nation "Viva Chile! ... Viva el pueblo! ... Vivan los trabajadores! (available in Spanish only)
Salvador Allende Web site in honor of former Chilean president, Salvador Allende, uncle of Isabel Allende. President Allende was slain during the military coup that brought Gen. Pinochet to power; offers biography and political analysis with numerous links; (available in Spanish only).
Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende.
2/23 "Notebooks
that bear witness to life:" Reclaiming the Past and Overcoming Terror
Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Music of Chile: Victor Jara, Inti-Illimani
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for the following texts: Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas; Woolf, Excerpts from "A Sketch of the Past" (in Readings for ENGL 653)
2/29 "The tyranny of the patriarchal state, .
. . the tyranny of the fascist state": Virginia Woolf's Political Vision
as Critique of Patriarchalism, Nationalism, Fascism and War
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas; Woolf, excerpts from "A Sketch of the Past" (in Readings)
Viewing: excerpts from Lena
Wertmuller’s "Seven Beauties"
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and
insights" for Morrison, Sula AND Jill Matus, “Contexts and Intertexts” and “Sula: war and Peace traumas” (in Toni Morrison,
1-36, 55-71); OR Beloved AND Jill Matus, “Contexts and Intertexts” and “Beloved: The Possessions of History” (Toni
Morrison, 1-36, 103-120)
3/2 Literature that “bears witness”: Representing the Losses, Traumas, and
Erasures of African-American History in Sula and Beloved
Toni Morrison, Sula OR Beloved;
Jill Matus, “Contexts and Intertexts” and “Sula: war and Peace traumas” (Toni Morrison, 1-36,
55-71) OR “Contexts and Intertexts” and “Beloved: The Possessions of History” (Toni
Morrison, 1-36, 103-120)
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; Woolf, "Thoughts on Peace in an Air-Raid" (in Readings); recommended reading: Smith-Rosenberg, “Discourses of Sexuality and Subjectivity” (in Readings)
3/9 Sexuality,
Empire, War, and Traumatic Memory in Woolf’s Fiction
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; “Thoughts on Peace in an Air-Raid” (in Readings)
Recommended reading: Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “Discourses of Sexuality and Subjectivity” (in Readings)
3/23 Annotated Bibliography for Scholarly Essay
Due. Class period will be used to
continue researching or begin planning the essay.
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare
"probes and insights" for Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby AND Jill
Matus, “Tar Baby: A Message Mailed from
under the Sink” (in Toni Morrison, 85-102). OR read Morrison’s The Bluest Eye AND Jill Matus, “Shame
and Anger in The Bluest Eye” (Toni Morrison, 37-54) and prepare “probes and
insights” on these texts.
3/30
Morrison’s Tar Baby and The
Bluest Eye: The Consequences of Internalized Racism,
Capitalism, Colonialism, and Patriarchy
Toni Morrison, Tar
Baby OR The Bluest
Eye
Jill Matus, Tar
Baby: A Message … (Toni Morrison, 85-102) OR “Shame
and Anger in The Bluest Eye” (Toni Morrison, 37-54) What did you think of
Matus’s reading of the novel?
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for Woolf, The Waves (up to page 147—roughly half the novel); Jane Marcus, “Britannia Rules the Waves” (in Readings).
4/6 Dismantling the Master's Household: Woolf's Critique of Colonialism, the British
Empire and its Founding Institutions (education, the family, commerce and
trade, sexuality)
Virginia Woolf, The Waves (to page 147—half the novel)
Jane Marcus, “Britannia
Rules the Waves” (in Readings) What
did you think of Marcus’s reading of the novel?
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for last half of the novel AND Toni Morrison’s “Rootedness (in Readings)
4/13 Woolf’s
Critique of Empire (continued)
Woolf, The Waves (149-296—second half of novel)
Morrison, “Rootedness” (in Readings)
Viewing:
Assignment for Next Class: Read and prepare "probes and insights" for 1) Morrison, Jazz; Craig Werner, Jazz: Morrison and the Music of the Tradition” (in Readings)
4/20 Memory, Traumatic History,
and Loss in Morrison’s Jazz
Morrison, Jazz (we’ll begin our discussion of the novel this week)
Werner, “Jazz: Morrison and the Music of the Tradition”
Viewing: “I’ll Make Me a World, Part 2: Without Fear or Shame” (The Harlem Renaissance)
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Home Page. Provides links pertinent to African American history and culture maintained by the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library.
Assignment for Next Class: Jill Matus, “’A sweettooth for pain’: History, Trauma, and Replay in Jazz (in Toni Morrison, 121-144). Also review the novel in view of this week’s discussion. Jot down two more discussion questions you’d like us to cover next week on the novel and the article.
4/27 Compassion, Community and Love as Healing Grace in Morrison’s Jazz
Morrison, Jazz
Matus, “’A sweettooth for pain’: History, Trauma, and Replay in Jazz
(in Toni Morrison, 121-144)
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