Narrative Odysseys: Oceanic Literature and Political ... Literature and Political Anthropology from...
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Matthew Ocheltree ENG 98r - Fall 2014 1 Narrative Odysseys: Oceanic Literature and Political Anthropology from Homer to Conrad Course Description “Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were not out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and make him the won brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick, “Loomings” This course will explore the political problems and literary opportunities presented by the sea in transatlantic narrative literature. The Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin developed the concept of the “chronotope” to describe the ways in which spaces and environments shape our relationship to the world, unlocking (and foreclosing) patterns of experience that are reflected in the structure of fictional representation. The ocean represents a special kind of environment that is utterly distinct from and yet deeply resonant with the one we normally inhabit. It is the space of ceaseless mobility and wandering, of profound loneliness and desolation, of cowardice and heroism, of disorienting cultural contact and exchange, of radical instability and change; it is the space we associate with the origins and otherness of life, and thus also with life’s hidden mysteries and deepest secrets. In a globalized world, these concerns emerge as increasingly central to modern life, whether we begin our search for “modernity” in ancient Greece or in our own twenty-first century culture. Our reading will consider a number of ocean-based environments (the voyaging ship, the island, the beach, the port, the river, the underwater depths), character types (the quester, the castaway, the beachcomber, the marauder, the explorer, the megalomaniac), and narrative structures through the lens of the chronotope. We will try to understand how these elements shape fictional experience in the novel, with limited attention to narrative poetry. The question of genre will also be explored through a variety of seafaring genres (Homeric epic, romance, and adventure tales; utopian, historical, and science fictions; young adult literature and fantasy) and literary forms (ethnography and travel narrative, short story and novella, classic novels). While we will begin with a genealogy of forms drawn from classical literature (the Odyssey, the Argonautika), readings will focus primarily on the 18th- and 19th-century Anglo-American tradition from Defoe to Conrad by way of Irving, Melville, Stevenson, Wells, and, depending on student interest, either Jules Verne or Amitav Ghosh. Supplemental readings in poetry will be available as appropriate, with a running undercurrent of Byron, who was the great Romantic poet of the sea, and Elizabeth Bishop. In the visual arts, we will examine the late- period seascapes of the Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner. Secondary readings will introduce students to classic works of narrative theory and literary criticism, as well as select social and political theory. We will situate our inquiry into transatlantic literary culture within contemporary debates concerning cultural mobility and encounter, sovereignty and the state of exception, and the critique of empire. Critical readings may include: Northrop Frye, Ian Watt, Fredric Jameson, Margaret Cohen, Mary Louise Pratt, Jonathan Lamb, David Simpson, Susan Manning, Ian Baucom, Daniel Heller- Roazen, Homi Bhabha, Stephen Greenblatt, and Giorgio Agamben.
Transcript of Narrative Odysseys: Oceanic Literature and Political ... Literature and Political Anthropology from...
Matthew Ocheltree ENG 98r - Fall 2014
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Narrative Odysseys: Oceanic Literature and Political Anthropology from Homer to Conrad
Course Description
“Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were not out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and make him the won brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick, “Loomings”
This course will explore the political problems and literary opportunities presented by the sea in transatlantic narrative literature. The Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin developed the concept of the “chronotope” to describe the ways in which spaces and environments shape our relationship to the world, unlocking (and foreclosing) patterns of experience that are reflected in the structure of fictional representation. The ocean represents a special kind of environment that is utterly distinct from and yet deeply resonant with the one we normally inhabit. It is the space of ceaseless mobility and wandering, of profound loneliness and desolation, of cowardice and heroism, of disorienting cultural contact and exchange, of radical instability and change; it is the space we associate with the origins and otherness of life, and thus also with life’s hidden mysteries and deepest secrets. In a globalized world, these concerns emerge as increasingly central to modern life, whether we begin our search for “modernity” in ancient Greece or in our own twenty-first century culture. Our reading will consider a number of ocean-based environments (the voyaging ship, the island, the beach, the port, the river, the underwater depths), character types (the quester, the castaway, the beachcomber, the marauder, the explorer, the megalomaniac), and narrative structures through the lens of the chronotope. We will try to understand how these elements shape fictional experience in the novel, with limited attention to narrative poetry. The question of genre will also be explored through a variety of seafaring genres (Homeric epic, romance, and adventure tales; utopian, historical, and science fictions; young adult literature and fantasy) and literary forms (ethnography and travel narrative, short story and novella, classic novels). While we will begin with a genealogy of forms drawn from classical literature (the Odyssey, the Argonautika), readings will focus primarily on the 18th- and 19th-century Anglo-American tradition from Defoe to Conrad by way of Irving, Melville, Stevenson, Wells, and, depending on student interest, either Jules Verne or Amitav Ghosh. Supplemental readings in poetry will be available as appropriate, with a running undercurrent of Byron, who was the great Romantic poet of the sea, and Elizabeth Bishop. In the visual arts, we will examine the late-period seascapes of the Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner. Secondary readings will introduce students to classic works of narrative theory and literary criticism, as well as select social and political theory. We will situate our inquiry into transatlantic literary culture within contemporary debates concerning cultural mobility and encounter, sovereignty and the state of exception, and the critique of empire. Critical readings may include: Northrop Frye, Ian Watt, Fredric Jameson, Margaret Cohen, Mary Louise Pratt, Jonathan Lamb, David Simpson, Susan Manning, Ian Baucom, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Homi Bhabha, Stephen Greenblatt, and Giorgio Agamben.
Matthew Ocheltree ENG 98r - Fall 2014
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Course Requirements
1. Attendance and participation in weekly discussions 2. Two presentations on secondary readings, prior to Week 10 3. Several short response and/or targeted bibliographic exercises 4. A library consultation on research resources and methods with Odile Harter 5. A meeting with the Dept Writing Fellow about outlines and/or drafts for the junior essay 6. Attendance at three general meetings for the junior tutorial program (details TBD) 7. A 2-4 page Prospectus and Annotated Bibliography (8-10 sources) due by Week 8 8. A 20-25 page junior essay due on December 9, with a 15-20 page draft due by Week 11
Reading Schedule 0. INTRODUCTORY WEEK 1: Margaret Cohen, “Chronotopes of the Sea,” in The Novel, Volume 2: Forms and
Themes, ed. Franco Moretti (Princeton UP, 2007) [20pp] ---. “Introduction: Seafaring Odysseus,” in The Novel and the Sea (Princeton
UP, 2010) [15pp]
Stephen Greenblatt, “Cultural Mobility: An Introduction,” in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto (Cambridge UP, 2009) [25pp]
Northrop Frye, selection from The Secular Scripture (Harvard UP, 1976)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) William Wordsworth, “The world is too much with us; late and soon” (1806)
Wallace Stevens, “The Place of the Solitaires,” “Stars at Tallapoosa” (1923) J.M.W. Turner, introduction to the late-period seascapes (1835-1842)
1. ADVENTURES AT SEA: A GENEALOGY OF ROMANCE
Classical Voyages: The Romance of Exile and Quest
WEEK 2: Homer, Odyssey, trans. Richmond Lattimore (2007) [325pp; 110pp selection]
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautika, trans. Peter Green (2008) [155pp] Supplemental: John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832), “Ulysses” (1833, 1842) Critical Reading: Mikhail Bakhtin, selection from “Forms of Time and Chronotope in the
Novel” (1937-38) in The Dialogic Imagination (trans. 1981) On reserve: Silvia Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture (Chicago UP, 2005) 2. THE ISLAND: SOVEREIGNTY AND UTOPIA Islands and Shipwrecks: The Ideology of Individualism and the Remaking of Society WEEK 3: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) [250pp] Supplemental: William Cowper, “The Cast-Away” (1799) Elizabeth Bishop, “Crusoe in England” (1976)
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Critical Reading: Giorgio Agamben, selection from “Part I. The Logic of Sovereignty,” in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford UP, 1998)
Ian Watt, selection from “Part II. From Puritan Ethic to Romantic Apotheosis,” in Myths of Modern Individualism (Cambridge UP, 1996)
On reserve: J.G.A. Pocock, The Discovery of Islands (Cambridge UP, 2006) The Beast and the Sovereign: Experimental Explorations and Dystopian Futures WEEK 4: H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) [125pp]
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839) [500pp; 100pp selection] Supplemental: Robert Browning, “Caliban Upon Setebos” (1864)
Critical Reading: Fredric Jameson, selection from Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (Verso, 2005)
Jacques Derrida, from The Animal That Therefore I Am (Fordham UP, 2008)
Giorgio Agamben, selection from The Open: Man and Animal (Stanford UP, 2003) On reserve: Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History (Chicago UP, 1995) 3. THE OPEN SEA: NO MAN’S LAND AND THE STATE OF EXCEPTION Of Mutinies and Moral Dilemmas WEEK 5: Herman Melville, Benito Cereno, from The Piazza Tales (1856) [70pp]
Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897) [130pp] Supplemental: George Gordon, Lord Byron, “The Island, or Christian and His Comrades” (1823) Walt Whitman, The Sea-Drift from Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
Critical Reading: Cesare Casarino, selection from Modernity at Sea: Melville, Marx, Conrad in Crisis (University of Minnesota Press, 2002)
David Simpson, selection from Fetishism and Imagination: Dickens, Melville, Conrad (Johns Hopkins UP, 1982)
On reserve: A Political Companion to Herman Melville, ed. Jason Frank (Kentucky UP, 2013) Piracy: The Violation of (B)orders WEEK 6: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883) [200pp] Supplemental: George Gordon, Lord Byron, “The Giaour” (1813), “The Corsair” (1814) Critical Reading: Daniel Heller-Roazen, selection from The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of
Nations (Zone, 2009) *Week #6: Provis ional Paper Topic Due
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4. TRANS-ATLANTIC CROSSINGS The Eastward Pilgrimage of Literature, The Westward Flow of Books WEEK 7: Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20) [325pp;
225pp selection] Supplemental: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816) & selections
from Canto IV (1818) Critical Reading: Susan Manning, “Transatlantic Historical Fiction,” in Transatlantic Literary
Studies, 1660-1830, ed. Eve Bannet and Susan Manning (Cambridge UP, 2012) ---. selection from Fragments of Union: Making Connections in Scottish and American Writing (Palgrave, 2002)
** SPRING BREAK ** 5. THE CONTACT ZONE: CULTURAL MOBILITY AND COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION Beaches: Negotiating the Encounter WEEK 8: Herman Melville, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846) [250pp] Supplemental: Selections from The Journals of Captain Cook (First Voyage, 1768-71; Second Voyage,
1772-75; Third Voyage, 1776-80) Seamus Heaney, “The Peninsula” (1969), “Shore Woman” (1972), “North” (1975), Crossings xxvii, Squarings xlvii & xlviii, (1991), “Postscript” (1996)
Critical Reading: Mary Louise Pratt, “Introduction: Criticism in the Contact Zone” & selection
from “Part I. Science and Sentiment, 1750-1800” (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2007)
Jonathan Lamb, selection from “Part I. The Romancing of the Civil Self,” in Preserving the Self in the South Seas, 1680-1840 (Chicago UP, 2001)
On reserve: Greg Dening, Beach Crossings: Voyaging Across Times, Cultures, and Self (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
Geoffrey Sanborn, The Sign of the Cannibal: Melville and the Making of a Postcolonial Reader (Duke UP, 1998)
*Week #8: 2-4 page Prospec tus and Annotated Bibl iography due Ports: The Business of Empire WEEK 9: Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904) [400pp; 250pp] Supplemental: Matthew Arnold, “To Marguerite.—Continued” (1849), “Dover Beach” (1851, 1867)
William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” (1928), “Byzantium” (1933) Critical Reading: Ian Baucom, selection from Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and
the Philosophy of History (Duke UP, 2005)
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6. INTO THE ABYSS: THE SEA AND THE WORLD The River: The Network of Empire WEEK 10: Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard (1904) [400pp; 150pp]
---. Heart of Darkness (1899) [100pp] Supplemental: Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” from Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish” (1946), “Arrival at Santos,” “Questions of Travel,” “The Riverman” (1965)
Critical Reading: Homi Bhabha, “Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of ambivalence and
authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817,” in The Location of Culture (Routledge, 1994)
The Hidden Depths: Scientific Romance (Verne Option) WEEK 11(a): Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869-70) [370pp; 185pp] Supplemental: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Kraken” (1830) Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck” (1973) Critical Reading: Selection from Jules Verne: Narratives of Modernity, ed. Edmund Smyth
(Liverpool UP, 2000)
Rosalind Williams, selection from The Triumph of Human Empire: Verne, Morris, and Stevenson at the End of the World (Chicago UP, 2013)
In the World Republic of Letters (Ghosh Option) WEEK 11(b) Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (1981) [500pp; 250pp] Critical Reading: Franco Moretti, selection Atlas of the European Novel, 1800-1900 (Verso, 1998)
---. selection from Distant Reading (Verso, 2013)
Pascale Casanova, selection from The World Republic of Letters (Harvard UP, 2004) [25pp]
*Week #11: 15-20 page Draft due Imagination Unbound: Speculative Fiction (Verne Option) WEEK 12(a): Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869-70) [370pp; 185pp] Supplemental: Elizabeth Bishop, “The Map,” “The Imaginary Iceberg, “Quai d’Orléans” (1946),
“Sandpiper” (1965), “At the Fishhouses” (1979) Critical Reading: Andy Martin, selection from The Mask of the Prophet: The Extraordinary Fictions
of Jules Verne (Clarendon Press, 1990)
Timothy Unwin, selection from Jules Verne: Journeys in Writing (Liverpool UP, 2006)
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In the World-System of Capital (Ghosh Option) WEEK 12(b) Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (1981) [500pp; 250pp] Critical Reading: Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Translating Life-Worlds into Labor and History,”
Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, 2nd ed. (Princeton UP, 2000) [25pp]
Peter Sloterdijk, selection from In the World Interior of Capital: Towards a Philosophical Theory of Globalization (Polity, 2013) ---. selection from Bubbles: Spheres, Vol. 1: Microspherology (Semiotext(e), 2011)
*OPEN* WEEK 13: Junior Essay Research and Drafts Roundtable Discussion Supplemental: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book IV (Friendship), Canto XI (1596)
Wallace Stevens, “Sea Surface Full of Clouds” (1923), “The Idea of Order at Key West” (1936), “Landscape with Boat,” “Asides on the Oboe” (1942), “This Solitude of Cataracts” (1950), “Prologues to What is Possible” (1954)
** JUNIOR ESSAY DUE: DECEMBER 9 @ 4pm** Junior Essay Schedule
• Week #6: Provisional topic due • Week #8: 2-4 page Prospectus and Annotated Bibliography (8-10 sources) due • Week #11: 15-20 page draft due• December 9, 4pm: Junior Essays due (one copy to department, one copy to tutor)
Assigned Texts *Prices listed can be found on Amazon.com {ISBN #’s in brackets}.
Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautika , trans. Peter Green (UC Press, 2008) $19 {0520253930} Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe , ed. Michael Shinagel, 2nd ed. (NCE, 2001) $14 {0393964523} Washington Irving, The Sketch-book of Geof frey Crayon , ed. Susan Manning (Oxford, 2009) $10 {0199555818} Charles Darwin, The Voyage o f the Beagle , ed. Steve Jones (Modern Library, 2001) $10 Herman Melville, Typee , ed. John Bryant (Penguin, 1996) $10 {0140434887} Herman Melville, Melvi l l e ’ s Short Novels , ed. Dan McCall (NCE, 2001) $16 {0393976416} Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Is land , ed. Peter Hunt (Oxford, 2011) $8 {0199560358} H.G. Wells, The Is land of Dr. Moreau , ed. Mason Harris (Broadview, 2009) $15 {1551113279} Joseph Conrad, The Nigger o f the ‘Narcissus ’ , ed. Robert Kimbrough, 3rd ed. (NCE, 1979) $20 {0393090191} Joseph Conrad, Nostromo , ed. Jacques Berthoud & Mara Kalnins (Oxford, 2007) $10 {0199555915} Joseph Conrad, Heart o f Darkness , ed. Paul Armstrong, 4th ed. (NCE, 2005) $17 {0393926362} Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , trans. William Butcher (Oxford, 1999) $10 {0199539278} OR Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (Picador, 2009) $14 {0312428596}
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Optional Texts Homer, The Odyssey , trans. Richmond Lattimore (HarperPerennial, 2007) $10 The Journals o f Captain Cook , ed. Philip Edwards (Penguin, 1999) $10 Charles Darwin, Darwin , ed. Philip Appleman, 3rd ed. (NCE, 2000), $20 George Gordon, Lord Byron, The Major Works , ed. Jerome McGann (Oxford, 1986) $13
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm – Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth (c.1842), London
Optional Films Jason and the Argonauts, dir. Don Chafey (1963) The New World, dir. Terence Malick (2004) Robinson Crusoe, dir. Luis Bunuel (1954) Miami Vice, dir. Michael Mann (2006) Castaway, dir. Robert Zemekis (2000) Aguirre, The Wrath of God, dir. Werner Herzog (1972)Island of Lost Souls, dir. Erle Kenton (1932) Fitzcarraldo, dir. Werner Herzog (1982) Master and Commander, dir. Peter Weir (2003) Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Ford Coppola (1979) Mutiny on the Bounty, dir. Frank Lloyd (1935) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, dir. R. Fleischer (1954) Mutiny on the Bounty, dir. Lewis Milestone (1962) The Life Aquatic, dir. Wes Anderson (2004) Treasure Island, dir. Victor Fleming (1934) The Master, dir. P.T. Anderson (2012)Captain Phillips, dir. Paul Greengrass (2013) All Is Lost, dir. J.C. Chandor (2013) Jaws, dir. Steven Spielberg (1975) Mr. Turner, dir. Mike Leigh (2014)
