MALAS 600D:
Art, Film, & Literature: Form, Politics, & the Everday
Tentative Schedule
Semester Overview
WEEK ONE: Sept 1
Tues: Introductions
WEEK TWO: Sept. 8
Film Techniques & Terminology
Film: Visions of Light [in class]
WEEK THREE: Sept. 15
The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future (Chapters 1-14; Paragraphs 1-113)
&
Film: Fight Club
Reviews of Fight Club (the movie) : Roger Ebert, James Berardinelli, Ken Turan
For this week, check out this Online Glossary of Cinematographic Terms. Watch the clips, and read the analyses. We'll discuss the terms in this week's class.
Also, read over this Wikipedia page on Anarcho-primitivism
WEEK FOUR: Sept. 22
The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future (Chapters 15-26 & notes etc.; Paragraphs 114-232 & notes 1-36)
&
Fight Club: A Novel cont...
Film: Koyaanisqatsi
WEEK FIVE: Sept. 29
David Foster Wallace, "Luckily The Account Representative Knew CPR"
David Foster Wallace, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"
Paul Lafargue, The Right To Be Lazy Chapter I & Chapter II & Chapter IV
Film: Office Space
WEEK SIX: Oct. 6
Chapter One, "The Culmination of Separation," & Chapter Two, "The Commodity as Spectacle" of the Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle
Chapter Five: "The Decline and Fall of Work" from The Revolution of Everyday Life
Wikipedia Page on the Situationists
Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street (1953)
Film: Bartleby
WEEK SEVEN: Oct. 13
"PLEASE EXCUSE THIS SCHEDULED INTERRUPTION": THE SITUATIONIST SITUATION
All Assigned Texts and the complete Situationist International Anthology (save "Methods of Detourement") may be found here. There will be slight differences between the printed versions and the online versions.
Debord & Wolman, "Methods of Detourenment" (pages 8-14, Situationist International Anthology).
"Dagwood on Detournement" (online only)
Debord, "Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency's Conditions of Organization and Action" (pages 17-25, Situationist International).
"Detournement as Negation and Prelude" (pages 55-56, Situationist International).
Debord, "Theory of the Derive" (pages 50-54, Situationist International).
"Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation" (pages 43-44, Situationist International).
Film (Short Subject): "I'll Wait for the Next One" (Online Version Here)
WEEK EIGHT: Oct. 20
Joe Sutliff Sanders Guest Lecture
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
AND DON'T FORGET DR SUTLIFF SANDERS' EARLIER (4:00-5:00) LECTURE AT THE SDSU LIBRARY, in THE LEON WILLIAMS ROOM (LOVE LIBRARY 430)
HIS TALK IS TITLED, "ASSUMPTIONS OF THE INNOCENT: MARKETING AND MANIPULATION IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE."
After Professor Sutliff's talk, he and I will retire for food, after which (just before 7:00) we will make our way to our regularly scheduled classroom for a discussion of comics, graphic literature, and Scott McCloud and his Understanding Comics. Great fun for all!
Joe Sutliff Sanders (bio):
Professor Sanders has been reviewing graphic novels since 2002, including a long stretch at VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates). He has served as the featured Graphic Novel review columnist for Teacher Librarian, an international journal for school librarians that is a sister publication of VOYA, since 2007.
His most recent publications have been about classic girls' novels (Children's Literature Association Quarterly), children's metafiction (Lion and the Unicorn), and Neil Gaiman's Sandman (The Sandman Papers). Contemporary American Comics, a new book from the University of Mississippi Press, will feature a new article by Professor Sanders on sexuality in comics. Last summer, Professor Sanders was one of the invited faculty at Hollins University, where he taught a special graduate course on comics and graphic novels for young readers.
WEEK NINE: Oct. 28
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol ("The Painting that Ate Paris" & Scanned comics from Blackboard)
In the Trade Paperback The Painting that Ate Paris, please read issues 26-29. You can read the others, of course, if you so desire (they're really good!) but the main focus will be on 26-29.
Read all the issues scanned and posted to Blackboard. IMPORTANT: Download and read Doom Patrol issues 49, 50, 51, & 52.
Check this out, if you're interested in hearing a relatively drunk Grant Morrison on Chaos Magic.
WEEK TEN: Nov. 3
Ways of Seeing
Film: Ways of Seeing (BBC Series) (in-class)
WEEK ELEVEN: Nov. 10
Baaa (Picture Book)
Film: "Soylent Green"
WEEK TWELVE: Nov. 17
Jam Alerts
WEEK THIRTEEN: Nov. 24
Furlough Day: No Class
WEEK FOURTEEN: Dec. 1
Furlough Day: No Class
WEEK FIFTEEN: Dec. 8
Final Paper Discussion
WEEK SIXTEEN: FINAL EXAM WEEK: Final Projects Due on Exam Day