Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 9, 2009 23:54:02 GMT -6
In a few weeks, I will begin teaching ENG1160, a seminar on Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). This eight week course will focus on this remarkable woman, her achievements, and her influence.
Stein was an uncommonly gifted poet (a self-described "genius") and writer. She is most remembered for the immortal "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" (from her poem "Sacred Emily") and for her autobiography The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (written from the perspective of her partner). A brilliant judge of skill, Stein helped create and guide the modernist movement in both art and literature. Among her associates and proteges were Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway.
This course will necessarily entail instruction in general modernism and background in what preceded it. Many people may have received exposure to the movement from my previous course about the modernist novelist Ernest Hemingway, but most of our primary texts will be books of poetry. To our great fortune, almost everything we will be reading precedes 1923, and so virtually no expenditure will be required of students. Our sources will be such works as Tender Buttons, Geography and Plays, and Three Lives.
This course will run eight weeks, with an additional week afterward for the final exam. Each week there will be a lecture, discussion, and a reading assignment (generally three or four poems). On the sixth week a short paper (2-3 pages) will be assigned, due on the seventh week, and there will be a final exam when the course is finished. Those curious as to my teaching style are directed to look at the Hemingway course I taught previously (although hopefully I will be much better now). General information on Stein may be found here.
I am prepared to teach this course if I have at least six students. Pending that and university approval, then we will have our first lecture on Thursday, April 30th, and will "meet" every Thursday thereafter.
Stein was an uncommonly gifted poet (a self-described "genius") and writer. She is most remembered for the immortal "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" (from her poem "Sacred Emily") and for her autobiography The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (written from the perspective of her partner). A brilliant judge of skill, Stein helped create and guide the modernist movement in both art and literature. Among her associates and proteges were Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway.
This course will necessarily entail instruction in general modernism and background in what preceded it. Many people may have received exposure to the movement from my previous course about the modernist novelist Ernest Hemingway, but most of our primary texts will be books of poetry. To our great fortune, almost everything we will be reading precedes 1923, and so virtually no expenditure will be required of students. Our sources will be such works as Tender Buttons, Geography and Plays, and Three Lives.
This course will run eight weeks, with an additional week afterward for the final exam. Each week there will be a lecture, discussion, and a reading assignment (generally three or four poems). On the sixth week a short paper (2-3 pages) will be assigned, due on the seventh week, and there will be a final exam when the course is finished. Those curious as to my teaching style are directed to look at the Hemingway course I taught previously (although hopefully I will be much better now). General information on Stein may be found here.
I am prepared to teach this course if I have at least six students. Pending that and university approval, then we will have our first lecture on Thursday, April 30th, and will "meet" every Thursday thereafter.
