English 021 Creative Reading

Weblog - Entries for mphillip
Smile
Class display
by mphillip

The class photo: quite a photogenic bunch. Kai is missing, though, and Amy's hidden....
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May 23, 2005, 09:42 AM
Third essay assignment
E3 Haroun Alice
by mphillip

Submission dates Tuesday, 5/10 Please bring to class two copies of full (4-5 page) rough drafts of your essay to class. We will be peer editing on that last day of class. Thursday, 5/12 by 4 p.m. Please drop off in my mailbox (English Department office, first floor of Massachusetts...
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May 08, 2005, 02:52 PM
Last blog assignment!
8 Carroll
by mphillip

Re-read the White Knight's poem in “'It’s My Own Invention'” (Chapter 8). Of the many titles mentioned for this weird poem, which one is the best? And what might the poem imply about narration in Carroll's story? Base your claims on a specific connection between detail in the poem and...
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May 03, 2005, 01:42 PM
Eigth blog assignment
7 Carroll
by mphillip

Post before class on Thursday, April 28 Zero in on a passage in Through the Looking Glass in which someone uses a name or a phrase in a strangely literal way. In what way does this use lead to bad communication? How responsible is Alice for misunderstanding? - or, contrariwise...
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April 26, 2005, 02:20 PM
Seventh blog assignment
6 Rushdie
by mphillip

Due before class on Thursday, April 21 There was a further silence. "Very well, then," Haroun said boldly. "You said it could be a big wish, and so it is. I come from a sad city, a city so sad that is has forgotten its name. I want you to...
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April 19, 2005, 04:05 PM
Rushdie
Class display
by mphillip

More on Rushdie, FYI New York Times information, reviews - lots of solid background and information here, including an article on Cat Stevens's deathwish for Salman Wikipedia entry on Salman Rushdie - unauthorized, written communally The fatwa - and a BBC News report about how it's still in effect,...
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April 19, 2005, 02:08 PM
Oral presentation #2 schedule
Class display
by mphillip

Group A - Preps on Monday, 4/25, 7-9 p.m., 207 Sills 4/26 - Lewis Carroll background: Paul 4/26 - Preface: Shawn 4/28 - Ch 1 Looking-Glass House: Kiel 4/28 - Poem: "Jabberwocky": Jake 4/28 - Ch 2 Garden of Live Flowers: Amy Group B - Preps on Thursday, 4/28, 7-9...
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April 07, 2005, 02:07 PM
Sixth blog entry
5 Byatt
by mphillip

Due before class on Tuesday, April 5 "I find I am at ease with other imagined minds...." - RHA, in a letter to CL (p. 174) From the perspective of someone in your group, what does poetry (or other imaginary writing) provide that is unavailable in 'real' life? What does...
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March 31, 2005, 12:42 PM
Fifth blog assignment
4 Byatt
by mphillip

Due before class on Tuesday, March 29 PossessionMain Entry: pos·ses·sion Pronunciation: -'ze-sh&n also -'se- Function: noun Date: 14th century 1 a : the act of having or taking into control b : control or occupancy of property without regard to ownership c : OWNERSHIP d : control of the ball...
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March 10, 2005, 01:07 PM
A.S. Byatt
Class display
by mphillip

Possession Groups VICTORIANS - Randolph Henry Ash (letters, poem, interest in CL, later reputation): Jake, Oliver, Paul - Christabel LaMotte (letters, poems, tales, interest in RHA, later reputation) - Kat, Kai, Rogan - Other Victorians surrounding these two (Blanche, Sabine, Ellen…) - Brendan, Shawn, John MODERNS - Roland (characteristics, interactions,...
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March 08, 2005, 02:34 PM
E1 assignment
E1 Pale Fire
by mphillip

Write a 4-5 page analytic essay on Pale Fire, one that illuminates a subtle message of this most puzzling novel. You may bring in Wilde or Wallace for points of contrast, but the agenda of this essay is to prove something interesting – and, let’s hope, even surprising – about...
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March 06, 2005, 12:51 AM
Fourth blog assignment
3 Nabokov
by mphillip

Due before class on Thursday, 2/24 Comment on one of the 3 Nabokov entries. Make sure your comment is pithy and carefully written: organized, anchored by details from Pale Fire, thoughtfully engaged with the entry it's commenting upon. Your comment might raise an objection, or it might bolster the entry's...
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February 22, 2005, 05:14 PM
Oral presentation #1 schedule
Class display
by mphillip

Group 1: meets as a group on Thursday, 2/24, 7-9 p.m., 207 Sills 3/1 - SW 12 - Shawn 3/1 - SW 13 - John 3/3 - SW 14 - Rogan 3/8 - SW 15 - Kat 3/10- SW 16 - Amy 3/10- SW 16 - Anne Group 2: meets...
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February 22, 2005, 02:41 PM
Nabokov
Class display
by mphillip

More on Nabokov, FYI Zembla - Official site of the Intern'l VN Society. A great big site - includes his bio, information on other works, pictures, Jeremy Irons reading Lolita... also a substantial bibliogrphy as well as some criticism, including this interesting article on the 'real' author of Pale...
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February 15, 2005, 02:46 PM
Third blog assignment
3 Nabokov
by mphillip

You saw this one coming a mile away: Kinbote’s commentary seems to actually ignore most of Shade’s poem. But can you identify a particularly interesting and specific point of congruence? This could be an echoed phrase, a shared image, a similar obsession.... How might this congruence revise our understanding of...
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February 15, 2005, 02:05 PM
Second blog assignment
2 Wallace
by mphillip

Post before class on Thursday, 2/10 Both DFW stories present characters with "some horrific defect in [their] human makeup, some kind of hideous central ice where [their] heart's nodes of empathy and basic other-directness ought to be..." ("Octet," p. 138). Do such stories, in the end, fight against such disconnection?...
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February 08, 2005, 02:19 PM
David Foster Wallace
Class display
by mphillip

More on David Foster Wallace, fyi The Howling Fantoids - A longstanding fan site. Includes Brief Interviews With Hideous Men links and many DFW interviews . New York Times Hideous Men review. "Approaching Infinity" - a somewhat recent profile of DFW in the Boston Globe....
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February 08, 2005, 01:48 PM
Wilde & Shakespeare
Class display
by mphillip

More on Oscar Wilde, fyi The Portrait of Mr. WH - Online text. Hyperlinked to appropriate Shakespeare sonnets. Oscariana - Eclectic mix of writing and images. The trials of Oscar Wilde - Background and documentation of his ruin. Pictures of Wilde and his crowd - From UCLA's Clark Library The...
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February 03, 2005, 02:36 PM
First blog assignment
1 Wilde
by mphillip

Post before class on Thursday, 2/3 "’My dear Erskine,’ I said, getting up from my seat, "you are entirely wrong about the whole matter. It is the only perfect key to Shakespeare’s Sonnets that has ever been made. It is complete in every detail. I believe in Willie Hughes." "Don’t...
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February 01, 2005, 02:35 PM
Mark's test
Test
by mphillip

Background: I was born in Boulder, Colorado; I went to college in New York and attended grad school at Berkeley. I'm a romanticist - hence I carry around a lot of ideas about the ungovernable power of literature. The book I'm currently reading, Wilkie Collins's mysterious The Woman In White,...
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January 24, 2005, 03:03 PM