For Thursday: Station Eleven, Part Three & Pedagogical Assignment for Station Eleven

 Remember to read Part Three of Station Eleven for Thursday's class, even though we won't have any questions for the book. Instead, the class will start generating questions for discussion when we come to class. These will form the basis of our discussions, and help us navigate through the tricky narration of Mandel's Novel. Groups can send me the questions before class if they want me to distribute it to the class ahead of time, but this is not necessary. The assignment is below:

Pedagogical Assignment for Station Eleven

As your penultimate assignment for class (only the final paper is left), I want you to get some practical experience running a demanding college course—or in this case, designing some of the questions that guide our discussions and responses to the text. I will no longer assign any questions of my own, or any in-class writing exercises. That will be your job! I’ve broken you up into groups of two to help run our discussions of Station Eleven for the rest of the semester. Each group has a very simple task to complete, though it’s harder than it looks.

THE QUESTIONS: I’ll ask your group to come up with FOUR discussion questions that we will discuss as a class, much like the questions I assign on the blog.  Your group is completely in charge of creating these questions, which you can do in one of two ways: (a) each member can create 4 questions (a total of 8), which you can then cull into 4 questions for the class, or (b) you can work on the 4 collaboratively. Either way works, as long as you come to class with the four questions in enough handouts for the entire class (there are 13 students). These do not have to be posted ahead of time; just bring them to class and we will try to tackle them as a class.

REQUIREMENTS: Of the 4 questions, at least 2 of them should be theoretical in nature. This means that they either should reference a passage or an idea from Culler, or should use an idea from ‘outside’ the text to examine an idea or passage in the book. For example, you might point out something meta-textual in the book (Shakespeare, Sartre, etc.), or you could simply point out an example of ‘performative language.’ Just try to vary your questions and avoid asking questions about the plot or something that can be answered without some degree of ambiguity or disagreement.

ALSO: On the underlined days below, those groups should select one of their questions for an in-class writing prompt. Bring all four questions, but ask us to write about one of them at the beginning of class. So make it a good one!

THE SCHEDULE:

R 2     Mandel, Station Eleven:  Jess, Josie  (Part 3)

T 7     No-Class: ECU Interscholastic Meet  

R 9     Mandel, Station Eleven: Christine, Joshua (Part 4)

T 14   Mandel, Station Eleven: Canaan, Madison (Part 5)

R 16   Mandel, Station Eleven: Morgan, Cody  (Part 6)

T 21   Mandel, Station Eleven: Dallan, Huston, Rebecca (Part 7)

T 28   Mandel, Station Eleven: Christian, Kaylyn  (Part 8-9)

For Tuesday: Mandel, Station Eleven, Chapters 1-12 (parts 1 and 2)

From the Station Eleven series (2021)

No questions for our first reading, but we will have an in-class response on Tuesday, so consider some of the following ideas as you read Chapters 1-12 (parts 1 & 2 of the book):

* The motto of the Traveling Symphony is "Because survival is insufficient." What do you think this means, especially given people in the Symphony and their mission in life? In a post-apocalyptic world, what else do you need?

* Related to the above, why do so few people desert the Symphony? Is it simply a matter of safety/survival? Or is there something else about the reality of Year Twenty?

* Do you find it strange that the Symphony travels around performing Shakespeare, of all things? What might make Shakespeare even more relevant in a world "after" the world than in our own present? In other words, why does Shakespeare persist?

* We got a master class in narration with The Turn of the Screw, and in this book, we get a third-person narrator but limited through many different perspectives. Why do you think we open in the 'past' with Jeevan's experiences? What does he show us that might become important later on?

* Chapter 6 is one of the scariest chapters in the book: how is society connected by a spider's web of necessities, luxuries, and conveniences, so that if one disappeared it would take dozens of others with it? How conscious of this are we on a day-to-day basis? 

* Why does the novel constantly go back and forth between the past and the present so often? And why is a novel uniquely qualified to do that, much more so than a movie, show, or a play? Why might novels really be the first 'time travelers' in our society? 

For Thursday: Culler, Chapter 8: Identity, Identification, and the Subject

This is the LAST chapter of Culler that we'll read for class, but it's an important one. It's a little tricky, so bear with it, since the better you understand this chapter, the easier you'll see connections (and implications) for your Final Project. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Why is the word "subject" in English such a tricky one? How do the various definitions of the word suggesting the theoretical complications of the term? Do you think this is an instance when our language knows more than it lets on? 

Q2: What does Culler mean, quoting Nancy Armstrong, that novels "produced 'the modern individual' who was first of all a woman" (113)? Why would novels create an identity which was primarily female in nature? And how might that have shaped even male identity for people who read books? In other words, why is the 'modern' self, in some senses, more female than male?

Q3: Lacan, a student of Freud, believed identity is a process of mirroring, of copying various performances which we come to believe are 'normal' or 'ideal.' Yet in doing so, "we do not happily become men or women...[and] always encounter resistance" (114). What "resistance" do we encounter in trying to copying our ideal male and female role models, and why does this ultimately doom are performance to be a "failure"? Why can't we become perfect copies of our models? 

Q4: In postcolonial studies, scholars often debate on how societies who have emerged from colonial ownership can best assert their identity and independence. If, for example, a novelist from post-colonial India writes a novel in English, are they still subject to English identity, even in the novel and its characters are Indian? Does an author have to utterly reject everything remotely sway to English identity to become liberated? Is a novel, by its very European roots, an agent of colonial identity? Is English itself? 

For Tuesday: The Turn of the Screw, Chapters 19-24

Answer TWO of the following as always: 

Q1: Why do you think the Governess becomes so antagonistic toward Flora, even seeing her as an "old, old woman"? It seems that if spirits were attacking the two children, Flora would have the most chance of redemption, being the most innocent. And yet the Governess sees her as the most forsaken, and has her removed from Bly altogether. Why is this, especially as Miss Jessel seems the less menacing of the two spirits?

Q2: Do you think Mrs. Grose finally believes the Governess, which is why she agrees to take Flora to her Uncle? Or is she simply removing her from the Governess (and if so, why doesn't she take Miles, too)? Are the "horrors" that Flora says in private about the Governess proof of Miss Jessel's instruction? Or might she have learned them from someone else? 

Q3:What does the Governess expect to happen now that the influence of Flora and Mrs. Grose has been removed? How might we account for statements such as, "We continued silent...as some young couple who, on their wedding-journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter"? Why might this moment invoke ideas of wedding/marriage/wedding night for the Governess? Is it as lurid as it first appears? 

Q4: Does Miles tell her the truth at the end of the story, or is he still lying (whether or not under the influence of Peter Quint)? Also, what reason does he ultimately give for being kicked out of the boarding school? Does she believe him?

Q5: (one more for good measure) What exactly happens at the end of the story? Has the Governess saved him from Peter Quint's influence? Is the exorcism successful? Or is he just dead? Was that the only way to save him from an evil spirit?  

For Thursday: The Turn of the Screw, Chapters 8-19

NOTE: We're backtracking a little for those who need time to catch up, so try to get somewhere between Chapters 8 and 19 for Thursday, though feel free to read the entire story. Here are some questions to write about for our next class:

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Anna Jameson wrote in her work, The Relative Social Position of Mothers and Governesses (1846) that the position of governess "places a woman of education and of superior faculties in an ambiguous and inferior position, with none of the privileges of a recognized possession, or places a vulgar, half-educated woman in a situation of high responsibility, requiring superior endowments.”  Does this knowledge make us more or less sympathetic (or more or less suspicious) of the governess? And which one is she: the superior woman, or the half-educated one?

Q2: We mentioned in class that the Governess is a writer, and apparently writes every word of this story (assuming the Narrator transcribed it faithfully). Where do we see instances of her being an ‘author’ or a writer in the story itself? Are there references to her writing, interpreting, translating, and narrating events to other people, the way an author would?

Q3: Somewhat related to the above, is the story of the ghosts and the ‘haunted’ children premeditated? Was this the Governess’ plan from the beginning, even before she stepped foot on Bly’s grounds? And if so, what might be her end game? Why would she want the entire household to suspect the children and fear the infiltration of evil spirits? How could this possibly work to her advantage?

Q4: In Chapter 8, the Governess writes, “To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment, and, so far as might be, my agitation.” Is she admitting here that her own cynicism and bias is coloring what she sees in the children? Does she have anything to support her fears that they are acting, holding things back, and playing up to her? Or does she suspect that it’s really all in her own head?

Q5: How might a story about ghosts and a haunted house be a great metaphor for the isolated lives of people like the Governess, Mrs. Grose, Miss Jessel, and others? Why might it be strangely appropriate for most ghost stories to occur in old houses like Bly, populated by an ‘invisible’ team of servants and groundskeepers? Does James ever suggest this kind of reading in the plot itself?

For Tuesday: James, The Turn of the Screw, Chapters 1-10 (more or less)

The Netflix series loosely based on James' novel

For Tuedsay's class (after Fall Break), we're going to start discussing James' The Turn of the Screw, a short Gothic novel about a governess who arrives at a remote estate in England to take charge of two very extraordinary young children who seem haunted by the secret history of the place. The governess takes it upon herself to uncover this history, though soon becomes aware that she's being watched a mysterious presence, as well as by the children themselves. Can she save the children and uncover the mystery? Or is her entire presence at the manor suspect and a danger to the children? Find out...

NO QUESTIONS this time, though we will do an IN-CLASS response when you arrive to get us started. Some ideas you might want to consider are:

* James wrote this story after many personal tragedies and after the failure of a play that was meant to make his name as a playwright. He wrote this as a quick 'potboiler,' a way to make money with a popular genre--the ghost story. When people asked him about the story, he said it was nothing, not one of his serious works, and not worth the effort to examine closely. Why might we not take this statement at face value (intentional fallacy)? Why might many authors even today be hesitant to stand behind stories of ghosts and the supernatural? 

* Since this is a ghost story, and draws upon popular conceptions of hauntings, the supernatural, etc., what might be James' “horizon of expectations” (Culler, p.63) for the story? What elements of the story might be less frightening or disturbing to us, but were obviously meant to be disturbing and frightening? Or, you might also consider what Gothic elements have aged well, and why we might still be his 'ideal audience'.

* This is a story that really draws distinctions between the story (what happens) and the plot (how it happens). How does the Governess/Narrator purposely confuse the two for the reader? How much of what happens is what she says is happening, and not necessarily the actual events that others might see? 

* Based on her language, what kind of person is the Governess? How does she reveal her own values, biases, and ideas of gender in her narration? In other words, how does her storytelling shape herself as well as the story?

* This story also uses a classic Gothic device which we see in Frankenstein, Dracula, and so many other horror stories: the discovered manuscript which a frame narrator merely reads or translates for the reader. Why do you think this kind of distancing is useful in a ghost story? How does it seem to function in this story, since we quickly forget that we're actually hearing one narrator read another? 

* How are Miles and Flora performing their roles as children and as male and female? Why might James focus a horror story on two children (one of each sex) as they reach the age where identity--and gender identity--becomes important? How does this also play into the language of the ghost story? 

For Thursday: Culler, Chapter 7: "Performative Language"

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What does Culler mean when he writes, "no one would have ever thought of being in love if they hadn't read about it in books, and the notion of romantic love...is arguably a massive literary creation" (96)? How could love, something which is so essential to the identity of being human, be a creation of books and literature? Or is he talking about something slightly different than simply 'love'?

Q2: Culler argues that language is performative, meaning that, like a play, it has to be staged, repeated, and performed 'by rote.' He gives the example of a wedding, where the groom and bride are asked, "do you take this man/woman...?" and the answer is always, "I do" (if they do, that is). Does this also suggest that the nature of language is derivative, and that to speak is to merely rehearse the language and actions of everyone who has gone before you? Is it possible not to repeat and not to rehearse previous language?

Q3: Using the work of Judith Butler, a prominent theorist of queer identity, Culler explains that "categories of identity are cultural and social productions, more likely to be the result of political cooperation than its condition of possibility" (102). Does this suggest that language itself creates the idea of being male or female? Is gender also a product of language? (assuming, of course, that gender is separate from sex).

Q4: If we define literature as "an act or event," how does this further limit the role of the author in determining meaning? And if so, who decides what "act" or "event" is produced from a book? Can a book create any act a reader wants it to? Or are there limitations?