Spring 2005 Advance Course Information

This information effective for Spring 2005. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

World Literature and Cultural Studies

[LTWL-123] [LTWL-190A]

123. The 1960s

Note: Tentative Syllabus

MW 5:00-6:45 p.m., Oakes 105
Instructor: Christopher Connery
E-mail: cconnery@ ucsc.edu
Office: Oakes 315, tel.: 459.2761
Office hours: Wed., 1:30-3:15 p.m. or by appt.
Sections T, 4-5:10 p.m.; W, 3:30-4:40 p.m.; F, 8:00-9:10 a.m.

Course Description

This course covers selected revolutions, thought, and cultural phenomena from the 1960s. Its perspective is global and historical. It does not attempt to be comprehensive. Revolutionary transformation and liberation are the course's main themes. Students are expected to be thoughtfully, imaginatively, and actively engaged with reading, lectures, film-viewing, music, performance activities, and discussion.

Textbooks

Purchase Textbooks at the Literary Guillotine bookstore downtown: 204 Locust St., 457.1195

Required Texts (Everyone must have these texts)

• Course Reader
• Nick Bromell, Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960s.
• Norman O. Brown. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History.
• William Hinton, Hundred-Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University.
• Mao Tse-tung, Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
• Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico.
• Tom Vague, Televisionaries.
• René Viénet, Enragés and Situationists in the Occupation Movement, France, May '68. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/enrages.html

There is some assigned reading on the web. Please print out web readings and bring to class.

Film Screenings: There will be some optional film screenings. Film titles in bold are required and should be seen either at the screening, or on your own at the library or elsewhere.

Requirements

Students are responsible for all readings and all lecture content. Thorough completion of all readings, ahead of the date for which they are assigned, is a requirement for passing the course. Please get notes for or recordings of lectures you miss. There will be several required films. These can be seen in class screenings, or on your own in the library.

1. A reading workbook. This will be done with a word processor, according to a specific format to be distributed in class, and will be completed for each reading assignment. Collected periodically.
2. One in-class midterm exam, factual/short-answer, and one essay, to gauge mastery of details in lectures and reading.
3. One in-class final. Wednesday, June 8, 4:00 p.m.
4. During the China unit, students will cooperate in groups to make big-character posters (more on this later).
5. In the last few weeks of the course, groups of students will write short manifestos.
6. Final Project. This could be a paper or a group project. The paper should use analytical tools and concepts developed during the quarter to discuss a sixties’ book, film, scene, song, painting, comic, etc. The group project would be a musical or dramatic performance, or an artistic production of some kind. If there is to be, as is traditional in the course, a class band or two, musicians should identify each other early and start song-writing, arranging, and rehearsing.

Evaluation and Grading

Narrative evaluations are the primary mode of assessment. Grades will be translated from evaluations. Reading workbook, exams, and the final project are the most important assignments, in that order. Doing all the reading, thoughtfully and on time, and attending all lectures and sections should ensure excellent performance in the class. In my experience, a ’60s course in the spring attracts slackers. I have nothing against slackers, and they are welcome in the class, but they should expect to fail or barely pass the course.

Class Schedule

Note: Schedule is subject to change

All reading not in one of the course textbooks or on the web is in the reader.

Monday, March 28: Listening to music and watching videos.

Cambodian rock, Hendrix, and Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y

Begin reading Fredric Jameson, "Periodizing the 60s" and chronologies.

Wednesday, March 30: Chronicling and Periodizing.

Reading: Fredric Jameson, "Periodizing the 60s" and chronologies.

Monday, April 4: Peasants and Mao.

Readings: Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, selections. Mao Zedong, "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society," "Investigation of the Peasant Movement in West Hunan."

Wednesday, April 6: Cultural Revolution and Mao by the Book.

Readings: Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung, all. Selections from Milton, Milton, and Schurman, eds. People's China: Social Experimentation, Politics, Entry onto the World Scene, pp. 210-234. Selections from Schoenhals, ed. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969, Not a Dinner Party.

Screening: Cultural Revolution films, Born in Flames, The Red Detachment of Women.

Monday, April 11: Cultural Revolution, I.

Readings: Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution, pp. 1-136.

Wednesday, April 13: Cultural Revolution, II, and International Maoism.

Readings: Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution, pp. 137-288.

Monday, April 18: Third Worldism and Violence.

Readings: Frantz Fanon, "Concerning Violence." Sanjay Seth, "Indian Maoism: The Significance of Naxalbari." Samar Sen, Debabrata Panda, Ashish Lahiri, eds., Naxalbari and After: A Frontier Anthology, selections.

Optional: Bannerji, ed. Thema Book of Naxalite Poetry, selections.

Big Character Posters Up This Week

Wednesday, April 20: Cuba.

Readings: Che Guevara, selections from Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War.

Monday, April 25: Guevara and Voluntarism.

Readings: Che Guevara, "Song to Fidel," "On Revolutionary Medicine," "Guerilla Warfare: A Method," "On the Budgetary System of Financing," "Colonialism is Doomed," "The Death of Imperialism and the Birth of a Moral World," "Man and Socialism in Cuba," "Message to the Tricontinental," from John Gerassi, ed. Venceremos: The Speeches and Writings of Ernesto Che Guevara.

Wednesday, April 27: Midterm, covering all material through April 25.

Screening: The Adversary, El Dia Que Me Quieras, Rojo Amanecer.

Monday, May 2: Mexico: The Cold War Context.

Readings: Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico, pp. 325-333; vii-167.

For some interesting, and recently declassified documentation on the massacre, see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB10/intro.htm

Wednesday, May 4: Mexico: Tlatelolco.

Readings: Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico, pp. 168-323.

Screening: Society of the Spectacle, A Grin Without a Cat.

Monday, May 9: Situationism.

Readings:

Situationist Reading on the Web:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/4.freetime.htm "The Use of Free Time"; http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/6.insurrection.htm "Instructions for an Insurrection"; http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/6.everyday.htm
"Perspectives for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life"; http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/8.kingsmen.htm "All the King's Men"; http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/poverty.htm "On the Poverty of Student Life."

Recommended: http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/disinterest.htm
"Disinterest Compounded Daily." This is a weird history and critique of a situationist group that started at UCSC in 1971.

Browse the following sites for texts of interest:
http://www.notbored.org/SI.html
http://www.bopsecrets.org/

Optional: Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle. http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/index.htm

Wednesday, May 11: The Events.

Readings: René Viénet, Enragés and Situationists in the Occupation Movement, France, May '68. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/enrages.html

http://www.media68.net/eng/core.htm

Required Readings on the web:

Theodore Kolokolnikov, Interpretations of May '68: The New Left http://www.media68.net/docs/kolokol.htm

http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/joyrev1.htm
Ken Knabb, The Joy of Revolution, chapters 1 and 3.

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/12.era1.htm "The Beginning of an Era" (parts I and II) (a Situationist analysis of Mai 68;

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/May68docs.htm (documents);

http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm (May '68 graffiti—English)

http://www.bopsecrets.org/French/graffiti.htm http://users.skynet.be/ddz/mai68.html (French original of graffiti).

http://www.neravt.com/left/may1968.htm

Optional for Marxists: Jacques Camatte, "About the Revolution" at
http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/abtrev.htm

Weekend Screening: Germany in Autumn, The Legend of Rita.

Monday, May 16: Germany.

Readings: Tom Vague, Televisionaries, entire.

Also check out: http://www.baader-meinhof.com/index.htm

Wednesday, May 18: Life Against Death.

Readings: Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death, pp. 1-73.

Monday, May 23: Life Against Death, II.

Readings: Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death, pp. 77-109; 135-144; 157-176; 234-322. Recommended: Entire book.

Wednesday, May 25: American Politics: SDS, Weather, etc.

Readings: "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows" (in reader).

SDS, "The Port Huron Statement" and "May 2nd Manifesto." At http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary.html

Valerie Solanis, "The SCUM Manifesto" at http://www.ai.mit.edu/~shivers/rants/scum.html

Joreen, "The Bitch Manifesto," at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/bitch/

Yippie manifestos at http://free.freespeech.org/yippie/writings/yippies/school.htm and http://www.imsa.edu/edu/socsci/jvictory/generation_gap/youth/yippie.htm

Digger Manifestos, at http://www.diggers.org/site_map.htm

Selections from Stansill and Mairowitz, eds. BAMN: Outlaw Manifestos and Ephemera.

Screening: Sympathy For the Devil.

Monday, May 30, Holiday

Wednesday, June 1: Rock'n'roll and Drugs.

Readings: Nick Bromell, Tomorrow Never Knows, whole book.

Manifestos Due Today.

Wednesday, June 8, 4:00 p.m., Final Exam, and submission of all written work.

Reading Workbook for Entire Course Due Today.

Final Essay Due Today.

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190A. Topics in World Literature and Cultural Studies:
“Theorizing Postcolonial Writing and Cultural Production in Our Globalizing/Localizing Contemporary World”

MW 7:00-8:45 p.m., Stevenson Academy 151
Instructor: Rob Wilson
Office: Oakes 311
Phone: 459-2401
E-mail: rwilson@ucsc.edu
Office Hours: Wed., 4:45-6:45 p.m. and by arrangement

Course Description, Goals, and Procedures:

This is a senior seminar on Topics in World Literature and Cultural Studies that takes as its special subject matter the multi-sited concerns of "Postcolonial Writing and Cultural Production in the Globalizing/Localizing Contemporary World."

This course will examine postcolonial writing by interrogating the terms, tropes, and geopolitical forces of "the postcolonial" as a rupture against the culture of colonialism: we will study its historical background, ideological assumptions, theoretical limits, and various forms of its cultural manifestations. Course materials include theory, history, film, fiction, polemic, and poetry. Readings will range across sites from the West Indies and North America to the Pacific and Great Britain; works will be mainly from the postwar period. To approach these diverse and multi-sited materials, problems, and situations of "postcolonial writing" and cultural production, this course (at the outset) will deal with some reigning models of global/local dialectics, interpreting and situating films as examples and challenges to these dominant theoretical frameworks and as sites where the global/local poetics of cultural identity comes into the language of social struggle.

As a way to critically frame these global/local considerations in national contexts where globalization is all too often conflated with neo-liberal Americanization, we will deal with space-time reorganization, filmic tactics of representation, and the cultural-political imaginary of geopolitical location in several postcolonial Pacific Basin and Rim and West Indian sites from Auckland, to Hong Kong, Seoul, and Mexico City to Antigua and Martinique as well as postcolonial London and Honolulu, as these sites can be linked to center-periphery dynamics and "minor" or "accented" tactics of cultural representation.

Crucial to these concerns with cultural identity is the way that identity and place—as a coalitional vision of imagined community, ecological struggle, and social collectivity—has emerged to contend with looming forces of transnational globalization by means of local, postcolonial challenge, and regional affirmation. Such a scalar vision of place, nation, and region (for example, in so-called Inter-Asia or the Pacific Rim) has to be constructed into self-conscious awareness by means of cultural representation and (to be sure) social struggle. Film (as the crucial genre of contemporary cultural production) can become a global/local mediating means of giving social agency to the forces of such situated imagination. Film (like world literature) can thus call attention to the constructed, fantasy-drenched, and trope-ridden nature of such "national/cultural" constructions, however substantial, natural, or primordial they seem.

Required Texts:

We will read materials in all of the following required texts: [Books and Course Reader will be available only at Literary Guillotine Bookstore at 204 Locust Street in downtown Santa Cruz (457-1195); used copies may also be found in other stores or on the web.]

1. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Grove Weidenfeld Press).
2. Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
3. Epeli Hau'ofa, Tales of the Tikongs (University of Hawaii Press).
4. Rob Wilson, Pacific Postmodern (Tinfish Press, but now out of print: available of Tinfish web site as free PDF file).
5. Alan Duff, Once Were Warriors (University of Hawaii Press or Vintage Press).
6. Julianna Spahr, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (U of California Press).
7. Julianna Spahr, Dole Street [Xerox provided by instructor].
8. Kathy Dee Banggo, 4-Evaz, Anna (Tinfish Press). [Xerox provided by instructor]
9. John Wideman, The Island Martinique (National Geographic Society/Directions).
10. Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera (Aunt Lute Press).
11. Albert Wendt, "Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree" [novella in Course Reader].
12. **Course Reader containing various essays, stories, background works, polemics, plays, etc.

Required Assignments:

Class Participation/ Weekly Written Assignments:
Each student must keep up with the weekly readings. and come to class prepared to ask questions about the text or to comment upon specific passages that challenge the reader. Along these lines, I do require each student to bring to the weekly class meetings at least one written question per week relating to the assigned or forthcoming readings; the better alternative would be to write a rough "reaction" paragraph or two (one-page maximum) in which you take some kind of stand or suggest possible topics or issues for class discussion. (I will need printed copies of this question/writing you do for each week, and these materials will form a "portfolio" of the work done in the class. The first one-page writing topic will be given out in class, and there will be other topics suggested weekly.)

Final Paper Project:
The final paper will consist of a "research" essay, ranging in length at around 10-12 pages, and in the form of critical (or creative) analysis with footnotes and bibliography. The main topic will be to pick any "postcolonial" author, site, genre, social community, or cultural phenomenon and discuss some of the cultural, geopolitical, and social dynamics making this object a distinctive expressive phenomenon. The paper should also reflect upon some of the readings done, theories discussed, and problematics developed in this specific course framework, though not exclusively so.

To choose topics, you can use your imagination, experience, and critical skills; the instructor will be open to any projects that touch upon some materials and themes discussed in the class and apply them to urban space and culture in some inventive, informed, and interesting way. The instructor wants you to pick a topic you will be fully passionate about in designing, researching, and writing .

Some suggested topics will be given out during the second half of the term. You will need to provide a one-page outline of your proposed topic and discuss it with the instructor as you begin to work on it. If you do some creative project, you will need to provide a one-page description of what you were aiming to achieve, some of the techniques used, and the authors and materials drawn upon as model or source.

Student Responsibilities:

1. Do all the assigned readings and come to class prepared to discuss the material, raise questions, challenge the instructor's reading and provoke other students to new insights, and so on. Come to class with the weekly writing assignment done and enough copies to pass out to instructor and to other students.
2. Be prepared to answer as well as to raise some questions of your own concerning the assigned readings.
3. Hand in your final research project on time, and complete all the weekly reading and writing assignments.

**********

About the Instructor:

Rob Wilson is a western Connecticut native who was educated at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a doctorate in English in 1976 and was founding editor of the Berkeley Poetry Review. Since that time, he has taught in the English Department at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and Korea University in Seoul and was a visiting professor of literature at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.

As of January 2001, he relocated here to Santa Cruz to become a professor of transnational/postcolonial literatures at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Advisory editor for the journals boundary 2, UTS Review, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, his works of poetry and cultural criticism include Waking In Seoul; American Sublime; Asia/Pacific as Space of Cultural Production; Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary; Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics and the New Pacific; and Reimagining the American Pacific: From "South Pacific" to Bamboo Ridge and Beyond.

He is working on two poetry and cultural poetics collections: Ananda Air: American Pacific Lines of Flight, and Automat: Unsettling Anglo-Global Poetics Along Asian/Pacific Lines of Flight; and an anthology of cultural criticism called Worldings: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization, forthcoming, with New Pacific Press in Santa Cruz, California. During the fall of 2004, he was a visiting professor in the Cinema Department at the Korea National University of the Arts in Seoul, South Korea.

E-mail: rwilson@ucsc.edu

WWW: For some web links to his work as scholar and poet, go to

http://www2.ucsc.edu/aparc/aparc.htm

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