2016-17 syllabus
Timetable TBC
Stephen Shapiro, convenor (s.shapiro@warwick.ac.uk)
Mark Storey (m.j.storey@warwick.ac.uk)
Please purchase and read this book on writing essays BEFORE Week 4: Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (Norton, 2006; rev. ed. 2014)
Term 1, week 1: joint session 1: Introduction: C21 US writing and culture
Term 2, week 1: joint session 2: Occupy Wall Street
Stephen's readings
Week 2.
George Saunders, Pastoralia (Bloomsbury, 2000) [Read these stories only: “Pastoralia,” “Winky,” “Sea Oak” and “The Falls”]
Ivor Southwood, selections from Non-Stop Inertia (Zero Books, 2011) [available on forum]. Read pages 1-30.
Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Zero Books, 2009) [skip sections 6 and 7]
“Fuck You, Buddy” from The Trap (2007), dir. Adam Curtis (in-class viewing)
Week 3.
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (Please read only these sections of The Pale King: 1-6; 8-9; 13-14; 17; 19; 22-25; 27; 44-45; Notes and Asides)
Gerard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, from The Crisis of Neoliberalism (Harvard UP, 2011): 7-32, 45-54 [handout]
Week 4.
Joshua Clover, Riot.Strike.Riot: The New Era of Uprisings (Verso, 2016)
#blacklivesmatter videos
Week 5.
Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric (Graywolf, 2014), parts I-V, pages 5-79.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (Text Publishing, 2015)
Dave Zirin, "Serena Williams is Today's Muhammed Ali"; "Serena Williams, Indian Wells and Rewriting the Future"
Week 7.
Darryl Pinckney, Black Deutschland (Farrar, Strauss, 2016)
Week 8.
Don DeLillo, Zero K (Picador, 2016)
Week 9.
Transparent, Season 2 (Amazon, 2015)
Week 10.
“Homosexuality - a Christian Dialogue” @ William Jessup University (in class viewing and discussion)
https://vimeo.com/52718211
Mark's readings
Week 3.
Week 4.
Week 5.
Week 7.
Week 10.