ENG122NW (Winter 2007): Ryan Boyd section syllabus
From UCSB English Department Knowledge Base
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“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected.”
-Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory
Ins & Outs of the Course
Professor Raley’s aperçu:
“This course examines twentieth-century narratives of war from the perspective of our contemporary moment. It thus does not aim to be historically comprehensive; instead our reading will be focused on certain questions and themes, including smart war; total war; just war; military intervention; models of the enemy; trauma; and the reformulation of human rights in the context of the “war on terror.” Print narratives will include Pat Barker, Regeneration (and short selections of WWI poetry by Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen); Joe Sacco, Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995; Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried; Etel Adnan, Sitt Marie Rose; and others. Theory and criticism will include Ernst Friedrich, Jordan Crandall, Paul Virilio, James Der Derian, Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, and Manuel De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. Films will include Apocalypse Now and West Beirut. Games and other media projects will include September 12; Antiwargame; America's Army; Full Spectrum Warrior; and Baghdad <> San Francisco. (Media projects such as The Great Game will illuminate the shift from representation to information visualization.) We will also consider the rhetoric and function of war reporting and discuss excerpts from films such as The Mills of the Gods, War Feels Like War, Gunner Palace and Jarhead.
“There will be two papers and a comprehensive final exam. This course will count toward the undergraduate specialization in Literature & Culture of Information but is designed for a general audience; LCI students will compose a web project to substitute for one of the papers. All students should be prepared to attend separate film screenings or to make alternate arrangements to see the films we will discuss in the course (DVDs and videos will be on reserve in Kerr Hall).”
More comprehensive course information—including lecture/reading schedule, assignment due dates, film dates, grading percentages, and much of the required and recommended reading material—is available on the course website, which can be found at transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/curriculum/courses/overview.asp?CourseID=287. I encourage you to consult this site whenever possible. It is very extensive and will probably answer most basic questions.
Ins & Outs of the Discussion Sections
Like any decent section, ours will center around talking about the texts we read. There will be no written in-section assignments—the course itself will keep you occupied I have only two expectations: that everybody contribute some noise, and that we approach the readings with passion and intelligence. Beyond that, the shape and direction of the course is up to you as much as it’s up to me. We are lucky that our class brings together English and Global Studies majors, as well as students with other, related areas of expertise and interest, for this enables us to study representations of modern warfare both as aesthetic performances—the artistic angle, as it were—and as subways into a mass of historical, geo-political, martial, sexual, racial, economic, and spiritual concerns. Neither approach is self-sufficient.
Attendance Policy for Section: Two unexcused absences = no section credit.
Plagiarism
You are all, I’m sure, already familiar with this issue. But I will rehash: if you attempt to pass off someone else’s work or words as your own without properly citing them, that is plagiarism. If you submit old work of your own without identifying it as such, that is self-plagiarism, also a cardinal sin. If you have any questions about UCSB’s official policies, please have a look at the “Academic Dishonesty” heading at kiosk.ucsb.edu/Academic Services.
When it comes to citing sources in your papers, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers should be your uber-guide. The Sixth Edition is the most recent and best; the Fifth is alright (you can get copies for about $4 on Amazon), but it is not as helpful when it comes to citing web pages.
In Conclusion . . .
Come see me if you have questions about anything that comes up during the course, even if it doesn’t relate solely to this class. My office hours are at the top of this syllabus; I’m also happy to make separate appointments if you can’t see me during those. E-mail is fine, too, but please keep those messages short: we can do a lot more talking in person.
Remember, UCSB is a huge school, and so the general lecture is big and not exactly ‘personal.’ Discussion sections—and your TAs—are your best resources for getting beyond the mass experience. Have fun, and think hard, not safely.
