For Wednesday: Lahiri, "The Last and Final Continent" (NOTE)

Yikes--I just noticed that the questions I posted yesterday didn't post at all! And now it's too late to re-post them, since no one will see them in time for class. So don't worry about questions. We'll just talk about the story in class tomorrow. My fault for not checking twice! :) 

For Monday: Lahiri, "This Blessed House," and "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"

Answer TWO of the following for Monday's class:  

Q1: The wife in "This Blessed House," Twinkle, becomes obsessed with the Catholic left-overs in their new house--plates, statues, and even a bust of Jesus. Why does she take such interest in these relics, and why does her husband disapprove, finding it an example of "bad taste"?

Q2: When Bibi is banished to the storage room for fear of infecting the child, she tells her friends, “Don’t worry, it’s not as if they’ve locked me in here...The world begins at the bottom of the stairs. Now I am free to discover life as I please” (170). What does she mean by this, and why might this be the beginning of her “treatment”?

Q3: How is Bibi a lot like Boori Ma from “A Real Durwan”? Though both are outcasts, why are they also necessary to their little neighborhoods? Similarly, why are they both undervalued by those closest to them?

Q4: "This Blessed House" seems to show the story “Sexy” from the other side—this time, from the wife’s perspective. While in “Sexy” our narrator is jealous of the movie-star beauty of Dev’s wife, why might this story suggest that their experiences are remarkably similar, and that both are “exiles” from the man they love?

Final Project: The Pan-Global Syllabus

English 3923

Final Project: The Pan-Global Syllabus

INTRO: Too often, we only experience literature is ghettoized fields: English lit, American lit, and then, as if every other country doesn’t have their own lit, “World” lit. But are all American works truly alike? And if not, what does that say about the umbrella term, World Literature? Do we risk losing identity and universality when we insist on only looking at countries (which are largely 19^th and 20^th century inventions) rather than cultures, ideas, and authors? Why not simply teach classes that look for cultural and thematic connections rather than national or linguistic ones? In an age of travel and translation, does it matter what language a work was written in or where it originally came from?

PROMPT: I want you design a syllabus for a new course at ECU: I call it “Pan-Global Literature,” but you can call it whatever you like. The syllabus should combine at least THREE of the works from this class (your choice) with THREE-FOUR works from other literatures/traditions that you feel complement these works (think of other classes you’ve taken and books you’ve read in college and high school). How can you make us see how some of the works in this class pair beautifully with other American, British, or other works that we wouldn’t otherwise read together?

The SYLLABUS should be like a real syllabus: it should have you as professor, and it should have the list of readings, a list of assignments (you don’t actually have to make those!), and a calendar of readings (it can be very rough—not even day by day). But most importantly, the syllabus should include a “Course Description” which explains how the works pair together and what themes/ideas unite them. This Description should be no longer than 1-2 pages, and should be at the front of the syllabus. Try to have fun with it and make it as much like a syllabus as you can, but think about what you want your students to understand, learn, and appreciate about literature as a global phenomenon (rather than a localized, national one).

DUE ANY TIME FINAL EXAM WEEK, but no later than Friday, May 6^th by 5pm!

For Friday: Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies, "Sexy" and "Mrs. Sen's"

NOTE: Remember that there is NO CLASS ON WEDNESDAY. I'm giving you a day off because I have to put together some research of my own, and I figure if I need some extra time, then you probably do, too! :) So answer these questions for Friday's class.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does Rohin tell Miranda that the word sexy means “loving someone you don’t know” (107)? Though a child would misunderstand this definition, why is it—at least for Miranda—somewhat close to the mark?

Q2: How does Miranda try to translate herself into an Indian and a mistress? Do these things seem to make a difference to Dev? Does she understand his attraction and interest in her?

Q3: After one of her driving lessons, Mrs. Sen exclaims, "Everyone, this people, too much in their world" (121). What terrifies or disturbs her most about life in America? What doesn't make sense to her here, and makes it difficult to her adapt to this new way of life?

Q4: How does Mrs. Sen expand Eliot's 'circle' and change the way he perceives his own day-to-day world? What ideas does she translate for him that he never even considered or understood before? Do these ideas come from Mrs. Sen's Indian identity, or is she simply showing him a woman's point of view?

For Monday: Lahiri, "The Interpreter of Maladies" & "A Real Durwan"

 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Mr. Kapasi observes early on that Mr. Das “looked exactly like a magnified version of Ronny. He had a sapphire blue visor, and was dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The camera slung around his neck...was the only complicated thing he wore” (44). Why does Mr. Kapasi disapprove of the family, and the parents in particular? What makes them strange and “alien” to him?

Q2: How do modern conveniences change the residents and break up the community? Why does Boori Ma no longer fit into this world?

Q3: When Mr. Kapasi dismisses his day job as "a job like any other," Mrs. Das exclaims, "But so romantic" (50). Why does she find it romantic, and why does she suddenly decide to make him her confidant? How does she also change for him in this instant? 

Q4: How is “The Interpreter of Maladies” a story about the clash between East and West, and why ‘translation’ is so difficult? Why is culture more than language and custom? What is Mr. Kapasi unable to translate for Mrs. Das and for himself?

Q5: Why is Boori Ma accepted as a “durwan” even though “under normal circumstances this was no job for a woman” (73)? What makes her able to break the social norms?

For Friday: Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies: First Two Stories (see below)

Be sure to read the first two stories in this collection, "A Temporary Matter" and  "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine." I'll give you a little context for the stories in class, but you won't need much, since they're the most modern stories in the book, and they're originally written in English (the first in our class)! 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” the narrator writes, “Most of all I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, a single fear” (41). What does this memory of his parents and Mr. Pirzada as a child say about the immigrant experience? Why did the three of them become “one”?

Q2: The narrators of both stories are the second generation, “Indians” but also “Americans.” What does being “Indian” mean to them, and do you feel it’s even how they seem themselves? What makes it difficult to maintain their identity in the new world?

Q3: Why do you think the power outage allows Shukumar and Shoba to finally stop avoiding each other and tell teach other the truth? Ironically, what about darkness helps them to ‘see’ each other after all this time?

Q4: Why do you think the narrator remembers Mr. Pirzada after all this time, especially since he was only part of their lives for a short time? What does he come to represent about her heritage, but also her childhood?

For Monday: Duras, The Lover (finish the book)

Photo by Steve McCurry

NOTE: Try to finish the second half of The Lover for Monday's class. If you need more time, no worries, since we'll still have a Comprehension Exam on Wednesday. 

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: The narrator is obviously infatuated with her roommate, Helene Lagonelle. She writes of her that she "worn out with desire" for her, and that she "wants her to give herself where I give myself" (74). Since she has clearly flouted so many of the taboos and social conventions of her society, why doesn't she have a relationship with Helene? What seems to stop her? 

Q2: Why does colonial society seem to destroy young men as readily as it discards young women? Why might men, in particularly, have a difficult time finding a role in this society? Why might the older brother's life be the rule, rather than the exception, in Indochine society? 

Q3: The Narrator does something strange in the book, conflating her stillborn child with her dead younger brother. Why does she do this? Does the brother's death allow her to mourn her child properly (openly)? How might this also relate to the Lover's desire of her being similar to his desire for a child? (she says a few times that she became his child). 

Q4: Finally, most importantly, does she love "the Lover"? Is the book really about him, as its title claims, or is he merely the means of kindling her memory to who she was at this time? Or does "the Lover" refer to someone/something else?