English 391

Senior Seminar

Professor David Richter

Fall 2002

Recycling the Past:

Postmodern Interventions with Classic Fiction

Syllabus: Class Schedule and Required Texts

September 4 and 11

“Briar Rose” (1811)

Hypertext version at www.qc.edu/ENGLISH/Staff/richter/Briar.htm

“Sleeping Beauty” (1696)

Hyptertext version at www.qc.edu/ENGLISH/Staff/richter/Belle.htm

Robert Coover: Briar Rose (1997)

For hypertext version see http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/rscholes/texts/BRhome.htm

September 18 and 25

Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Hypertext version at http://sailor.gutenberg.org/etext96/rbcru10.txt

J.R. Coetzee: Foe (1986)

New York Times e-archive at http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/author-coetzee.html

October 2 and 9

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1860-61)

Hypertext version at http://www.phapviet.com/~fab/great_expectations/files/read.html

Peter Carey: Jack Maggs (1997)

An interview with Peter Carey is published at http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0399/carey/interview.html

October 23 and 30

Gustave Flaubert: A Simple Heart (1877)

[The French text of “Un Coeur simple” from Trois Contes is published on the web at

http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/go?uncoeur3 ]

Julian Barnes: Flaubert’s Parrot (1984)

The BBC has links to information about Barnes and an interview with him at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/arts/books/club/flaubertparrot/links.shtml

November 7 and 14:

Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

Michael Cunningham: The Hours (1998)

November 21 and 28, December 4, 11 and 18

Student presentations on texts TBA

Requirements: Written and Oral Work

Reading all required texts and exploring their contexts

Reading short theoretical texts by Lyotard, Baudrillard and Jameson exploring aspects of postmodernism

Coming up with a research topic (together with instructor)

Leading discussion on your research topic (one hour)

Writing a term paper on your research topic (12-20 pp)