Second Essays -- Last Updated: Dec. 9, 1998 

Final Essays -- Last updated: January 3, 1999 

Texts and Materials

Texts (all available in bookstore)
 
Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Edition)
Stein, Three Lives
Freud, Totem and Taboo and Civilization and its Discontents
Eliot, The Waste Land and other poems
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Larsen, Quicksand
Lawrence, Women in Love
Woolf, Between the Acts
Maugham, Moon and Sixpence
Plus additional reading supplied by presenters and me.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Aims

The very notion of modernity, a recurrent concern of modernism, is inevitably bound up with notions of "the primitive." Historically, the West has invented versions of the primitive to help define its own understanding of what it means to be "civilized." The primitive self, for instance, has sometimes been thought to represent what the Western self had to repress in order to ascend to a more civilized state; or, conversely, the primitive self has been taken to represent what the West lost by abandoning a more "natural" way of living – hence the idea of the "noble savage." Primitivism thus intersects with modernism's obsession with origins — the origins of consciousness, culture, and history – as well as with visions of possible futures. This course will closely study modernist literature (1890-1940) and primitivism, with readings in Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Hurston, Freud, and Woolf. We will explore primitivism in relation to European colonialism, aesthetic revolt, modernist notions of myth, and contemporary critiques of civilization. Some attention will also be devoted to primitivism in the visual arts (Gaugin, Picasso) and human sciences (Darwin, Frazer, Malinowski).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Writing and General Requirements

Course requirements: regular reading and participation in class discussions are essential, of course, but writing will be equally important:
 
Three essays

• First, a short essay (no more than 5 pages), due Friday, September 25.
• Second, a medium-length paper (7-8 pages), due Friday, October 30: New Date
• Third, a seminar paper (15-20 pages), due Monday, December 14. For this culminating essay, you must incorporate some research into appropriate contextual, critical, or theoretical texts; the essay may remain grounded in the primary materials you studied in the second essay, or you may decide to extend your argument into some of the later assigned reading. You are also free to select one of the oral presentations (see below), whether your own or another's, as the basis for your research.

• A prospectus (1-2 pages) for the seminar paper, due Thursday, November 19 -- New Date. The prospectus should aim to foretell the ultimate shape and nature of your seminar paper: describe the whole of the project as best you can. The earlier you get going on this, of course, the more feedback and help I can give you.

Everyone will participate in a collaborative class presentation: working in groups of two, you will give a brief presentation on a topic selected from the Presentation Options sheet. On the class meeting prior to your presentation, you will be required to 1) distribute reading materials to the rest of the class for the presentation day, and 2) initiate a computer-mediated discussion (see below) focused on the connections between your presentation materials and the primary reading or themes of the course.
Some Guidelines and Requirements for your Presentations:

• Consult 2-3 primary context sources or 3-4 secondary sources (keeping them relatively short).
• Initiate the on-line discussion by posting some questions about the reading you have assigned. If you want to direct the class to some very specific issues or passages, you might want to include some quotations in your posting.
• Focus on intersections between your topic and the day's reading or the course's themes
• Select readings for the rest of the class: 20-25 pages, depending on the density of the reading.
• In class: limit yourself to 15 minutes (note change from printed syllabus) and end with 3-4 discussion questions for the class; these questions might overlap with your Allaire posting.
• Distribute a handout with key quotations, works consulted, dates, issues or other pertinent information.

 
 

Allaire Forums

Web-based computer-mediated discussion: in order to intensify and extend our exchanges in the classroom, I'll ask you to enter into a computer forum on a weekly basis to respond to one another's thinking about course materials. The link for Allaire forums is at the top of the page, and here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Presentation list
 
 1. Tuesday, September 22: ________   Justine and Ryan
 1910 Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London
 1984 Primitivism Exhibit at MOMA
 (In conjunction with Freud)
 
2. Tuesday, September 29:_________  Wendy and Cherie
 Frazer, The Golden Bough
 Weston, From Ritual to Romance
 (In conjunction with T. S. Eliot)

3. Tuesday, October 6:____________  Cody and Nathan
 Gauguin and Primitivism
 (In conjunction with Maugham)

4. Thursday, October 15:__________  Alexis, Kelly, and Kris M.
 Lawrence's letters
 Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious
 (In conjunction with Lawrence)

5. Thursday, October 22:__________  Marc and Laura
 Lawrence's paintings
 (In conjunction with Lawrence)

6. Thursday, October 29:__________  Stephen and Kyle
 Harlem Renaissance
 Josephine Baker

7. Tuesday, November 9:__________  Kristina B. and Molly
 Hurston's anthropology: Mules and Men
 (In conjunction with Hurston)
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introduction: Preliminary Terms and Images

Conrad, Heart of Darkness (read all of the story for this meeting)

Conrad, Heart of Darkness: excerpts from Norton edition: (79-81; 82; 100-15;   125-30; 142-3; 148; 200-01 [letter to Blackwood])
James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Self-Fashioning: Conrad and Malinowski," in The Predicament of Culture, 92-113 (on reserve in library)

Stein, "Melanctha," in Three Lives (read all for this meeting)

Continue discussing Stein
Michael North, The Dialect of Modernism, chapter 3 (on reserve in library; and a few copies outside my office door, as of 9/15/98)

• (If North is not yet listed in reserve for our course, check under Davis, "African American Modernism")

Finish discussing Stein (if necessary)
Freud, Totem and Taboo (through p. 124)

Freud, Totem and Taboo (through p. 164)

Finish reading Freud
Assigned reading from presenters

•  Presentation:  1910 Post-Impressionist exhibit in London and 1984 Primitivism Exhibit at MOMA

Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems

T Sept. 29

Eliot, continued
Assigned reading from presenters

• Presentation: Frazer, The Golden Bough and Weston, From Ritual to Romance

Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapters 1-39

Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, finish
Assigned reading from presenters

• Presentation: Gauguin and Primitivism

Finish discussing Maugham; begin Lawrence, Women in Love (thru chap. 6)

Lawrence, Women in Love (thru chap. 17)

Lawrence, Women in Love (thru chap. 21)
Assigned reading from presenters

• Presentation:  Lawrence's letters and Fantasia of the Unconscious

Lawrence, Women in Love (thru chap. 30)

Lawrence, Women in Love (finish)
Assigned reading from presenters

• Presentation: Lawrence's paintings

Larsen, Quicksand (Read the whole novella for class)

Larsen, Quicksand
Assigned reading from presenters
Introduction to our edition (relevant parts)

• Presentation: Harlem Renaissance and Josephine Baker

Continue discussion of Larsen
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, thru chapter 5

Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (A virtual class: go into Allaire forums during class time and respond to prompts and to one another), read thru chapter 15

Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, finish
Assigned reading from presenters

• Presentation: Hurston's anthropology: Mules and Men

Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, chapters 1-4

Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, finish

        Freud, Civilization and its Discontents: finish discussing Freud (if necessary); then
                backstitching and anticipations  (Get ahead on Woolf reading?)

Prospectus for final essay due, in my English Dept., Box by 3 p.m. or so: New Date

Barbarism, Fragmentation, and Community
T Dec. 1

Woolf, Between the Acts, through p. 149

Woolf, Between the Acts, finish

(Un)Wrapping it up

This syllabus is indebted to Prof. Jed Esty's "Modernism and Primitivism" course at Harvard University. I thank Jed also for the conversations in which we discussed what worked best in his version.