CLS450/HPR412
– 9/11
W 4-6:45pm,
Spring 2007
Dr. Alain-Philippe Durand
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND GOALS
This seminar introduces the fiction and non
fiction
(books and films) which deal with the tragic events of September 11,
2001. The
objective of this seminar is to try to identify the characteristics (if
any)
that seem to shape the corpus of texts and films dealing with 9/11 as
well as
to study and discuss the (often controversial) public and academic
reactions to
such works. The main questions that will guide us in our investigation
will be
to find out if there is such a thing as a literature of 9/11? And if
there is,
how can one describe and explain it? Who has the authority (if anyone)
to write
on 9/11?
CORPUS
Books
(Most of the texts below are on reserve at the URI Library)
Amis,
Martin. “The Last Days of Muhammad Atta.” The New Yorker 24 April 2006:
153-63. (PART 1)
(PART
2)
Badiou,
Alain. Ethics.
An Essay on the
Understanding of Evil. New York: Verso, 2002.
Baudrillard,
Jean. The
Spirit of
Terrorism. New York: Verso, 2003.
Beigbeder, Frédéric. Windows
on the World. New York: Miramax, 2005.
Butler, Judith. Precarious
Life. The Power of Mourning and
Violence. New York:
Verso, 2004.
Cleave, Chris. Incendiary. London:
Anchor, 2006.
Derrida, Jacques. Rogues.
Two Essays on
Reason. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 2005.
Durand,
Alain-Philippe and
Naomi Mandel, eds. Novels
of the
Contemporary Extreme. London/New York:
Continuum, 2006.
Dwyer, Jim,
and Kevin Flynn. 102 Minutes.
The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. New York: Times
Books, 2004.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely
Loud
and Incredibly Close. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Friend, David. Watching
the World Change: The Stories
Behind the Images of 9/11. New
York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2006.
Gravois, John. "Professors of Paranoia? Academics Give a Scholarly
Stamp to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories." The
Chronicle of Higher Education 23 June 2006: A10.
Jacobson, Sid and
Ernie
Colon. The
9/11 Report: A Graphic
Adaptation. New York: Hill
and Wang, 2006.
Jenkins, Henry.
“Captain America
Sheds
His Mighty Tears: Comics and September 11.” Terror,
Culture, Politics. Rethinking 9/11. Eds. Daniel J. Sherman and
Terry
Nardin. Indiana
UP, 2006. 69-102.
Lentricchia,
Frank and Jody McAuliffe. Crimes of Art + Terror.
Chicago:
U of Chicago
P,
2003.
Lurie,
Susan. “Falling Persons and National
Embodiment: The Reconstruction of Safe Spectatorship in the
Photographic Record
of 9/11.” Terror,
Culture, Politics. Rethinking 9/11. Eds. Daniel J.
Sherman and Terry Nardin. Indiana UP,
2006. 44-68.
Meyssan,
Thierry. 9/11:
The Big Lie. New York: Carnot,
2003.
Murphy, Dean
E. September
11: An Oral
History. New York:
Doubleday, 2002.
National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2004.
Price,
Reynolds. The
Good Priest’s Son. New York: Scribner, 2005.
Scarry, Elaine.
“The 9/11
Commission Report: Has It Incited a Public Debate About Our Nation’s
Defense?” Terror,
Culture, Politics. Rethinking 9/11.
Eds. Daniel J. Sherman and Terry Nardin. Indiana
UP, 2006. 206-13.
Sherman,
Daniel J.
“Naming
and the Violence of Place.” Terror,
Culture, Politics. Rethinking 9/11. Eds. Daniel J.
Sherman and
Terry
Nardin. Indiana UP 2006.
121-45.
Sontag,
Susan. Regarding
the Pain of Others. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Spiegelman,
Art. In
the Shadow of No
Towers. New York: Pantheon,
2004.
Virilio,
Paul. Ground
Zero. New York: Verso, 2002.
Tristram, Claire. After.
Picador, 2005.
Žižek,
Slavoj. Welcome
to the Desert of
the Real. New York: Verso, 2002.
Films
Bird,
Antonia, dir. The
Hamburg
Cell. 2004. (100 minutes)
Greengrass,
Paul, dir. United
93. 2006. (111 minutes)
Naudet, Jules and Gideon Naudet, dirs. 9/11. 2002
(129 minutes)
Stone, Oliver, dir. World Trade Center. 2006.
(129
minutes)
METHODOLOGY
Class sessions will
be devoted to discussing the films and the readings. There are several
different ways to approach a film/text in order to find meaning in it.
Knowledge about the director/author is helpful, but is BY NO MEANS the
key to understanding a work. For this reason some information is
provided on the authors in class (and in the assigned readings); but
the emphasis in this seminar will be on exchanging interpretations of
texts/films with each other. The forum for exchanging ideas will
consist of a mix of lectures, online forum,
full class discussion and small group work and discussions.
GRADE
Class Preparation and
Participation 20%
Research Paper 40%
Online Forum 20%
Group Presentation 20%
Class
Preparation and Participation (20%)
All
students are expected to come to class
prepared. This means that each student
needs to come to class:
- having read, viewed the assigned work and
having thought about it;
- prepared to ask and to answer questions on the
assigned work;
- ready to engage in active class discussion, and
participate fully in group discussions
and activities. Simply showing up to every class and on time is
expected but is
not enough for class participation. Only
frequent and active oral contributions to the class discussions will
count
toward the participation grade. Furthermore, a maximum of one absence
(excused
or unexcused) is allowed in this course. After one absence, your
participation grade will be significantly lowered as follows:
Two absences: maximum participation grade of C
Three absences: maximum participation grade of D
Four or more absences: 0 on participation
Please let me know in advance when
you have to
miss class.
Any
student who shows up late to class (after roll call at 4pm) will be
allowed in
class but will be counted absent. The same rule
applies
to students who leave the class before the end of a session (we will
take a
break during each class). Finally, the following is not acceptable in
this
class: coming to class without the textbook (make copies of the
assigned pages
of the day if needed); using a cell phone (making or receiving calls);
reading
newspapers or brochures; leaving the classroom at any time during a
session;
chat with classmates during class (if you have a question during class,
ask the
instructor); use working full or part-time as an excuse for not
completing an
assignment or for not preparing for class; scheduling interviews and
appointments with advisors at class time (if an advisor or
administrator on
campus tries to force you in meeting at the time of this class, please
let me
know asap). The participation
grade will
be significantly lowered for any of the above. This is a demanding
course.
Research Paper (40%)
Students
will write one research paper (12-15
pages of text not including bibliography and notes), typed,
double-spaced, size
of letter 12, Times New Roman or similar, MLA
Style). The paper is due no later than Thursday, May 3 at 5pm.
Students may
choose any topic and approach of interest as long as topic is original
and
approved in advance by the instructor (no later than April 18). Topic must deal with at least one of the
novels, short stories, or comics discussed in class. Students are
welcome
to discuss various versions of the papers with the instructor.
Nevertheless,
absolutely no outside help is allowed on the paper. A handout including
guidelines on how to write a research paper will be distributed in
class. The
grade will be based on:
-originality and relevance of topic;
-content, quality of analysis;
-style and organization;
-spelling and grammar;
-respect of MLA Style.
Late
work policy: The instructor will not accept
any work after
the day it is due. Mark your calendars
NOW with the paper due date.
Online Forum (20%)
Students
will
animate a public online electronic forum. In addition,
students will have the opportunity to dialogue with the following
novelists who
confirmed their participation to the online electronic forum :
Frédéric
Beigbeder, Chris Cleave, and Claire Tristram. Each student
must send at least one contribution (minimum of 200 words)
per week on the forum, starting on January 29, 2007. These
contributions
may be questions, comments, answers/reactions to the readings and
discussions.
They will help us to prepare, to complement, and to enrich in class
discussions.
Finally, each student will publish on
the forum, no later than April 25, 2007, a summary (200-300 words) of
his/her
research paper.
The grade will be based on:
-content, quality of postings;
-frequency and length of postings;
-spelling and grammar.
Forum
Link
How
to Read and to Post Messages to the Forum:
-Click
HERE;
-Click on topic you
want to comment on.
For instance, for the first week, click on “Baudrillard/Virilio/Zizek”
(please
note that when you first connect to the forum, you must click on page 2
at the
bottom of the screen to see “Baudrillard/Virilio/Zizek”);
-Click on “Respond
to this message”;
-Enter
your name, a
title, and then type
in your message (the email address is facultative, if you do not want
everyone
in the world to know your email address, do not enter it);
-When you are done,
click on “preview” to
revise everything;
-When you are ready,
click on “respond”;
-Please note that
this is a moderated
forum. Your post will not show up until I approve the message.
Group Presentation
(20%)
I will share
the students in groups of 3 or 4
before the end of February. A drawing will assign a specific novel (Incendiary, The Good Priest’s
Son, Extremely
Loud and Incredibly Close, or After)
to each group. Groups will be responsible for entirely animating the
class
discussion on their assigned novel on the assigned day (see the program
below
for dates). The grade will be based on:
-team
work, organization, cohesion, and spirit;
-ability
to generate and to sustain
quality discussion;
-oral
expression.
PLAGIARISM
Basically, plagiarism
is using other's work as
if it was yours. You may not realize it, but certain practices
lead
others to conclude that other's works are your own. Here are some
of these practices:
1.Using someone's exact words and not putting quotation marks around
them, which means the reader has no way of understanding this is not
the
work of the author.
2.Using someone's work and not attributing the source.
3.Paraphrasing so closely (same order of sentences, same order of
paragraphs, same order of sections ), with merely a word substituted
here and there. This indicates that the work is really still someone
else's. The intellectual work of re-thinking the meaning wasn't
done. This is true even if
the source is given.
4.Cut 'N Paste: Using parts of several people's work, which some think
is original - Not!The sum of sentences from other authors doesn't make
the combination original. Plagiarism will not be tolerated in
this
course. According
to section 8.27.17 of the Faculty Senate regulations, I will forward
any case
of plagiarism to the Dean’s Office.
If you have any doubt, please check with the instructor.
Source
PROGRAM
JANUARY
24
Introduction // Screening of The Hamburg
Cell
31
Theory (Baudrillard's The Spirit of Terrorism,
Virilio's Ground Zero, Žižek's Welcome to the Desert of the Real)
FEBRUARY
7
Theory (end) // Screening of 9/11
14
Reportage/Documents/Testimonials
The 9/11 Commission Report ("We Have Some
Planes," pages 1-46 and "Heroism and Horror," pages 278-83); Dwyer's 102
Minutes
(read at least two chapters of
your choice); Murphy's
September
11: An Oral History (read at least one
chapter of your choice)
RESERVE; Elaine Scarry.
“The 9/11 Commission Report: Has It Incited a Public Debate About Our
Nation’s Defense?” RESERVE
UNDER "SHERMAN"
21
Photography
David Friend. Watching the World
Change: The
Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (pages 3-37)
RESERVE
Susan Lurie. “Falling Persons and
National Embodiment: The Reconstruction of Safe Spectatorship in
the
Photographic Record of
9/11.” RESERVE UNDER
"SHERMAN"
Susan Sontag. Regarding the Pain
of Others.
(pages 3-73) ON RESERVE / Susan Sontag's Web Site
28
Conspiracy Theory
John Gravois's "Professors of Paranoia"
(Photocopy)
Thierry
Meyssan. 9/11:
The Big Lie RESERVE
Screening
of United 93
MARCH
7
The Short Story
Martin
Amis. “The Last Days of Muhammad Atta.” (PART 1)
(PART
2)
Frank
Lentricchia and Jody McAuliffe's Crimes
of Art + Terror. ("Introduction" and
"Groundzeroland," pages 1-17)
RESERVE
Judith Butler's Precarious Life. The
Power of Mourning and Violence /
Judith Butler's Web Site
14
The Novel
Claire Tristram's After (with the participation of
Claire Tristram on forum) / Claire
Tristram's Web Site
Watch World Trade Center prior to next class
Spring Break
19-25 March
// Last
day to drop is March 26
28 The Novel
Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud
and
Incredibly Close / Jonathan Safran Foer's Web
Site
APRIL
4
The Novel
Reynolds Price's The Good Priest’s
Son / Reynolds Price's Web
Site
11
The Novel
Chris Cleave's Incendiary (with the
participation of Chris Cleave on forum) / Chris
Cleave's Web Site
18 The Novel
Frédéric
Beigbeder's Windows on the
World (with
the participation of Frédéric Beigbeder on forum) / Frédéric Beigbeder's
Web Site
Alain-Philippe
Durand and Naomi Mandel's Novels of the Contemporary Extreme (pages 1-5
& 109-20)
RESERVE
Guest
Speaker:
Dr. Naomi Mandel. "Windows on the World: Towards an
Aesthetics of
Complicity."
Research Paper Topic Due
25
Comics and
Conclusions
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon's The 9/11 Report: A
Graphic Adaptation
Henry Jenkins.
“Captain America
Sheds His Mighty Tears: Comics and September
11.” RESERVE
UNDER
"SHERMAN"
Art
Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No
Towers
Research Paper due
no later than Thursday, May 3 at 5pm.
CLS450/HPR412
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