AJ25013: 21^st-Century American Fiction--McSweeney’s

Dr. Caren Irr

Fall 2003

Masaryk University

Thursday, 18:20 – 19:55

Room 32

Course Description

In recent years, new media have helped to revive the literary manifesto and magazine in the US. This course will focus on a few of the young writers associated with the increasingly notorious “internet tendency” called McSweeney’s. Readings will include a novel, short fiction, cultural criticism, and a memoir. We will look into the McSweeney’s group’s analysis of the publishing industry, urban scenes and gender relations, as well as attempting to determine how they imagine literary invention after postmodernism. To provide continuity, we will pay special attention as well to questions relating to consumer society.

Assessment:

-In-class participation: 25% All students should come to class well prepared. To prepare, read all the assigned material and write at least one question to submit in class. Students should expect to participate actively in discussions. Attendance at all class meetings is expected.

-Presentation: 25% Each student will prepare and deliver a 15-minute in-class presentation on one of the secondary readings. Presentations should summarize and analyze the reading, as well as presenting a hypothesis that links the primary and secondary readings for that class session.

-One essay: 50% Students will write one essay of 3000 words. The essay should treat one and only one literary text assigned for class, but essays may address any aspect of the text in question. Every essay should present a clearly argued and interesting interpretation of the text in question. Adequate interpretations will have a clear thesis, sufficient and relevant examples from the text, and appropriate analysis of the examples. Students are encouraged to make use of the secondary readings assigned for class in their essays.

Texts:

-Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

-Lydia Davis, Almost No Memory

-Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn

-David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

-Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt, eds, The Consumer Society Reader

-www.mcsweeneys.net

Weekly Syllabus:

1: McSweeney’s and the Culture Industry

www.mcsweeneys.net ; Adorno and Horkheimer (Schor and Holt)

2: Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; “Rules” – Part V; Ewan (Schor and Holt)

3: Eggers, Part VI-Part IX; Baudrillard (Schor and Holt)

4: Finish Eggers; Gladwell (Schor and Holt)

5: Lydia Davis, Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, pp. 1-70; Friedan (Schor and Holt)

6: Davis, pp. 71-140; Bordo (Schor and Holt)

7: Finish Davis; Wilson (Schor and Holt)

8: Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn, pp. 1-110; Twitchell (Schor and Holt)

9: Lethem, pp. 111-220; Frank (Schor and Holt)

10: Finish Lethem; Elgin (Schor and Holt)

11: David Foster Wallace, “E Pluribus Unum: Television and US Fiction” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again; Lasn (Schor and Holt)

12: Wallace, “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away From It All”; McRobbie (Schor and Holt)

13: Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”; Schor (Schor and Holt)

essay due