Shakespeare Cavell description

Course Description and Requirements:

Film 4133 Spring 2024
Richard Burt

Email all work for the course to me at [email protected]

This course will focus on marriage in Shakespeare’s comedies and in screwball comedies from the perspective of philosopher Stanley Cavell. In Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Cavell devotes chapters to The Lady Eve, It Happened One Night, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, and The Awful Truth. Although Shakespeare’s comedies have a lot in common with the screwball comedy, it is somewhat surprising that Cavell never wrote on them. In his book Disowning Knowledge: In Seven Plays of Shakespeare, Cavell wrote about Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, in which marriages never happen or fatally break down, and he also wrote about Eric Rohmer’s film adaptation of the late romance, The Winter’s Tale. We will do what Cavell did quite do: in adddition to watching the screwball comedies, we will read his read chapters on them, and watch film adaptations of Shakespeare plays he mentions, including The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, and Eric Rohmer’s A Winter’s Tale. By triangulating Shakespeare’s comedies and late romances, Cavell's books, and Screwball Comedy, we may learn something about what Cavell calls the comedy of remarriage. Each angle of this triangle will illuminate the other two. Requirements: Short writing assignments due the day before each class; class participation; three short papers.

Requirements: Co-leading class twice, active class participation, discussion questions based on the assigned readings for every class meeting, and three papers.

Discussion Questions (DQs) and BIG WORDS are always due by Mondays and Wednesdays by 5:00 p.m. Send both in one word document. Attach all work in emails as word documents for the course to me at [email protected]. Do not send pdfs. We will discuss your DQs in class the day after they are due Mondays and Wednesdays by 5:00 p.m. I have posted due dates for the the first few assignments but I will no longer give due dates after January 13. You'll know the drill by then.

BIG WORDS: For each assigned reading, I will ask you to look up the definitions of three Big Words and (and cut and paste the words and their definitions into one document including your DQs)

I'll ask you to co-lead classes two times during the semester. You and your co-leader will create a google document and share it with me so I can give you advice before we meet for class.

IGNORE EVERYTHING BELOW

corRESPONDance CO-rRESPOND

Question of response, answering, already built into the word CorRESPONDance

For God's sake, Mr. Storyteller, you ask, where are they going? And I answer: for God's sake, Reader, does any of us know where we're going? Where are you going?

--Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist, 41

With all this, Madam,—and what confounded every thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you might as soon—But where am I going? these reflections crowd in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts.

--Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

"Why Teach What You Already Know?"--Jean-Michel Rabaté

"I want to pay tribute to his memory here and to recall all that I owe to the trust and encouragement he gave me, even when, as he one day told me, he did not see at all where I was going. That was in 1966 during a colloquium in the United States in which we were both taking part. After a few friendly remarks on the paper I had just given, Jean Hippolyte added, “That said, I really don’t see where you are going.” I think I replied to him more or less as follows: “If I clearly saw ahead of time where I was going, I don’t really believe that I would take another step to get there.” Perhaps I then thought that knowing where one is going may no doubt help in orienting one’s thinking, but that it has never made anyone take a single step, quite the opposite in fact. What is the good of going where one knows oneself to be going and where one knows that one is destined to arrive? Recalling this reply today, I am not sure that I really understand it very well, but it surely did not mean that I never see or never know where I am going and that to this this extent, to the extent that I do not know, it I is not certain that I have ever taken any step or said anything at all."

--Jacques Derrida, "Punctuations: The Time of a Thesis," in The Eyes of the University, 115

I insist in this seminar on a certain irreducibility of the work, that is, l’oeuvre. As a possible legacy from what is above all an event, l’oeuvre, has a virtual feature only by surviving or cutting itself off from its presumed responsible signatory. It thereby presupposes that a logic of the machine is in accordance . . . with a logic of the event. Hence, there will remain some traces, dare I say visible archives, of this ongoing seminar and of its own context.
p. 280
but it is also sometimes a direct reference, sometimes an indirect, furtive, passing, oblique, accidental, machine-like, also in themed of the quasi avoidance of the unavoidable, of repression, or of the lapsus, and so forth. P. 282

Between culture and materiality, between a corpus or a proper name, Paul de Man, more precisely a very particular place of the posthumous corpus, Aesthetic Ideology—“). Here, then, is an inheritance that is also a posthumous work of Paul de Man’s to which we are invited to refer, between dashes, in the mode of an “a-propos” that set me to wondering. (281)

Lorsque j'écris, j'ai l'impression que je tresse desvoix, que je laisseparler, à tous les sens du terme. Laisser la parole à l'autre ; mais aussi laisser parler ainsi que le fait un analyste. Mais, n'est-ce pas, c'est aussi laisser parlerq uelqu'un ou une voix qu'on aime à entendre parler. C'est ainsi que j'ai le sentiment, quand j'écris, d'une très grave responsabilité et... d'irresponsabilité. Quand j'écris, j'ai l'impression qu'il s'agit pour moi de me libérer de je ne sais combien d'inhibitions pour laisser parler des voix multiples, pour lever des interdits, laisser se dire. Laisser écrire et laisser signer: ce qui est plus d'un ou plus d'une. Il n'y a d'événement qu'à cette condition-là.

Dr. Levinas's alternative to traditional approaches was a philosophy that made personal ethical responsibility to others the starting point and primary focus for philosophy, rather than a secondary reflection that followed explorations of the nature of existence and the validity of knowledge.
"Ethics precedes ontology" (the study of being) is a phrase often used to sum up his stance. Instead of the thinking "I" epitomized in "I think, therefore I am" -- the phrase with which Rene Descartes launched much of modern philosophy -- Dr. Levinas began with an ethical "I." For him, even the self is possible only with its recognition of "the Other," a recognition that carries responsibility toward what is irreducibly different.
Knowledge, for Dr. Levinas, must be preceded by an ethical relationship. It is a line of thought similar to Martin Buber's idea of "I and thou," but with the emphasis on a relationship of respect and responsibility for the other person rather than a relationship of mutuality and dialogue.
The French philosopher's critique of other philosophical currents linked him with French post-modernist thought. Although his major work, "Totality and Infinity," was published in France in 1961, it was an essay about him by Jacques Derrida that brought him a larger audience.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/27/world/emmanuel-levinas-90-french-ethical-philosopher.html

One expected a professor, and here is a man walking the edge of
a precipice, a flesh-and-blood man, a man who does not forget his
body. This aura surrounds the teaching of his successor, Heidegger,
too, from its beginnings in the lectures of his early years. In those
lectures he speaks of the university, he calls for a thought that,
within the university, would be a thought of existence and not an
abstract and comfortable, ultimately irresponsible exercise.

For God's sake, Mr. Storyteller, you ask, where are they going? And I answer: for God's sake, Reader, does any of us know where we're going? Where are you going?

--Denis Diderot, Jacques the Fatalist, 41

--Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

"Why Teach What You Already Know?"--Jean-Michel Rabaté

--Jacques Derrida, "Punctuations: The Time of a Thesis," in The Eyes of the University, 115

This distinction is quite
unintelligible, impossible even, it even seems to have no sense, it appears to
defy sense and good sense, consciousness, logico- philosophical consciousness
qua consciousness, precisely. It is not only purely and simply a contradiction,
and thus an impossible thought, a thought of the impossible or a
conception of the inconceivable. It is a contradiction between a system that
excludes contradiction (the Cs system, highly organized and coherent) and
the Ucs system which is never hampered by contradiction. The unconscious
is what is not affected by contradiction. What is more, in common language
and the logic and common sense that organize our lives, it happens every
day that one treats as irresponsible and unconscious whoever contradicts
him or herself without warning, whoever is not affected by contradiction.
Two pages earlier, moreover, Freud had recalled that the processes of
the unconscious system are intemporal ( Zeitlos ) and are not ordered according
to the consecutiveness of the temporal order. And this Zeitlosigkeit, this
intemporality is also an insensitivity to contradiction ( Widerspruchlosigkeit ),
an indifference to contradiction: the unconscious knows nothing of contradiction,
it doesn’t care about it, it contradicts itself all the time without ever
contradicting itself, without ever being bothered by contradiction. The unconscious
is not ashamed of contradiction. That is why it lies or rather why
it always tells the truth even when it contradicts itself from one sentence to
the next, it simultaneously lies and tells the truth and never renounces anything.
We need to remember all this if we want to continue to dare to think
what “phantasm” seems to mean, and die a living death, or die in one’s life-
3. Freud, GW, X:289; SE, XIV:190–91. In the typescript Derrida uses the common
[French] abbreviations Cs, Pcs, and Ics [Ucs] to designate “conscious,” “preconscious,”
and “unconscious” and their German equivalents.
221

, with extensive reference the French reception of Edgar Allen Poe, the primary focus being on The Case of M. Valdemar and The Purloined Letter Poe's two other Dupin Stories.

Roland Barthes, "The Case of M. Valdemar"

Derria, "The Deaths of Roland Barthes"

Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

The Gold Bug and cryptography

Derrida on Baudelair, Given Time: Counterfeit Money

Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Juan Luis Borges, "Doth of a Compass"

John T. Irwin, The Mystery to a Solution. Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story.

Lacan Seminar on the Purloined Letter in Ecrits

Jacques Derrida, "Le facteur de la vérité" ("The Factor / Purveyor of Truth"; "facteur" can mean both "postman" and "factor" in French) in The Post Card, pp. 412-96. (Read this translation by Alan Bass, not the translation by Jeffrey Mehlman in Yale French Studies). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out a copy on paper and bring it with you to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc., will not be allowed).

Derrida, For the Love of Lacan in Resistances

Juan Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote"

Carlo Ginzburg, Clues

KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN, Chapter 1 Distraction in America: Paper, Money, Poe (pp. 29-49) in Paperwork: Fiction and Mass Mediacy in the Paper Age

Sigmund Freud,The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Chapter Nine, "Symptomatic and Chance Actions" and Chapter Ten, "Errors."

Required Reading: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sections 1-IV (1 though IV, including IV). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out on paper to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc., will not be allowed.

Required Reading: Edgar Allen Poe, "The Purloined Letter"

Required Reading: Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sections V-VI (the rest of the book). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out on paper to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc will not be allowed). Recommended: Sigmund Freud, "A Note upon the Mystic Writing Pad"

Required Reading: Jacques Derrida, "To Speculate--On 'Freud'" in The Post Card, 257-291 ("1. Notices (Warnings"). Bring a copy of the book in print or a print out a copy on paper and bring it with you to class (Kindles, iphones, lap top computers, etc., will not be allowed).

Required Reading: Jacques Lacan, "Seminar on the Purloined Letter" (click on link to left for pdf)

Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny"

Recommended Readings: (T.B.R.S.,P.) Wilhelm Jentsch, "The Uncanny" ; E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman; Ernst Mach, Analyse der Empfindungen (The Analysis of Sensationsand the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical), cited

Quiz in class on Basic Terms of Film Analysis

The apparent permanency of the ego consists chiefly in the single fact of its continuity, in the slowness of its changes. The many thoughts and plans of yesterday that are continued today, and of which our environment in waking hours incessantly reminds us (whence in dreams the ego can be very indistinct, doubled, or entirely wanting), and the little habits that are unconsciously and involuntarily kept up for long periods of time, constitute the groundwork of the ego. There can hardly be greater differences in the egos of different people, than occur in the course of years in one person. When I recall today my early youth, I should take the boy that I then was, with the exception of a few individual features, for a different person, were it not for the existence of the chain of memories. Many an article that I myself penned twenty years ago impresses me now as something quite foreign to myself. The very gradual character of the changes of the body also contributes to the stability of the ego, but in a much less degree than people imagine. Such things are much less analysed and noticed than the intellectual and the moral ego. Personally, people know themselves very poorly. When I wrote these lines in 1886, Ribot's admirable little book, The Diseases of Personality (second edition, Paris, 1888, Chicago, 1895), was unknown to me. Ribot ascribes the principal role in preserving the continuity of the ego to the general sensibility. Generally, I am in perfect accord with his views.

Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations (1897). Dover Edition, 1959;
Translation: by C M Williams and Sydney Waterlow.

Having recalled this, and having taken this precaution as a matter of principle, I am not doing what one ought to do and cannot do it with you in a seminar. I cannot do all that again with you here for at least two reasons, as I was saying. The one has to do with the obvious lack of time: it would take us years. The other, less obvious, is that I also believe in the necessity, sometimes, in a seminar the work of which is not simply reading, in the necessity, and even the fecundity, when I’m optimistic and confident, of a certain number of leaps, certain new perspectives from a turn in the text, from a stretch of path that gives you another view of the whole, like, for example, when you’re driving a car on a mountain road, a hairpin or a turn, an abrupt and precipitous elevation suddenly gives you in an instant a new perspective on the whole, or a large part of the itinerary or of what orients, designs, or destines it. And here there intervene not only each person’s reading-idioms, with their history, their way of driving (it goes without saying that each of my choices and my perspectives depends broadly here, as I will never try to hide, on my history, my previous work, my way of driving, driving on this road [I first mistakenly transcribed "read" in place of "road,"R.B.], on my drives, desires and phantasms, even if I always try to make them both intelligible, shareable, convincing and open to discussion) [here there intervene, not only each person’s reading-idioms, with their history, their way of driving] in the mountains or on the flat, on dirt roads or on highways, following this or that map, this or that route, but also the crossing, the decision already taken and imposed by you by fiat as soon as it was proposed to you, to read a given seminar by Heidegger and Robinson Crusoe, i.e., two discourses also on the way and on the path which can multiply perspectives from which two vehicles can light up, their headlights crossing, the overall cartography and the landscape in which we are traveling and driving together, driving on all these paths interlaced, intercut, overloaded with bridges, fords, no entries or one-way streets, etc.

Jacques Derrida, The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. 2, (2012) 206

Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations (1897). Dover Edition, 1959;
Translation: by C M Williams and Sydney Waterlow.

Requirements: TOTAL ATTENDANCE; no computers or iphones in class (the text will be available on the screen in the front of the classroom); co-lead class discussion twice, once on a Tuesday and once on a Thursday; two discussion questions; and three or more "BIG WORDS" for each class; student formulated quizzes each class; three 700 word papers; and a willingness to reflect, think, respond, by paying very, VERY, VERY close formal attention to texts and films. All assigned work for the course must be completed, turned in on time, and be of passing quality to pass the course.

Please read the Class Policies page now.

All assigned work for the course must be completed and be of passing quality to pass the course. We will learn collaboratively. I will not lecture at you while you try to stay awake. Therefore, you and your fellow students must all participate in class discussion. This is a new and somewhat experimental course I have designed myself. It is not a course where you can do 70 percent of the work and expect to get a C in the course. To get a C in the course, you need to do 100 percent of the work at a C level. Because of the large number of students in the class, I may not notice if you have not been completing the work until the end of the term. In that case, you will receive an E. To get above a C, you must participate in class discussion.

All required books are in the UF Bookstore.

Required Readings:

Hamlet; Derrida writing on two of his then dead friends and rivals, Jacques Lacan and Paul de Man; and Derrida’s posthumously published “Last Words”; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Mary Shelley’s two posthumous editions of Percy Bysse Shelley; Lord Byron on the ghost of Old Hamlet in Don Juan, Canto XIII; Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydrotaphia; the Arden edition of Shakespeare’s Double Falsehood and reconstructions of Cardenio; the films The Trip to Italy and Journey to Italy, William Wordsworth's On Epitaphs; John Keats’ “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Again”; Paul De Man's "Autobiography as Defacement" and “Excuses (Confessions)”; selections from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions; and Maurice Blanchot’s “On Friendship.”

Please read the Class Policies page now.

Requirements (I repeat): Co-lead class discussion twice, once on a Tuesday and once on a Thursday; two discussion questions and three or more "BIG WORDS" for each class; student formulated quizzes each class; and three 500 word papers; willingness to reflect, think, respond, by paying very, VERY, VERY close formal attention to texts and films.

Free 2 Day delivery (I am not affiliated with Amazon's program in any way).

If you want to be in this class, you have to be in it.

Therefore:

If you are late to class, or if you leave during class, or if you leave class early, you will fail the class. You are allowed two absences without excuse or penalty. Rather than arrive late or leave early, use one of your allowed absence. I strongly recommend that you wake up early and plan to arrive by 8:25 a.m.

You'll need to have a copy of the reading--a copy printed on paper--with you in class.

I don't not allow the use of cell-phones, kindles, or computers in class. If you have a cell phone with you during class, please turn it off (not on vibe, but off). Take notes with paper and a pen or pencil. (I can see you, lol.)

I take silent roll for each class. If you don't turn in the discussion questions and "big words" (when they are due), I will count you as absent. For more details, see the class policies here.

To repeat: If you want to be in this class, you have to be in it. In short, if your ambition is only to get a "C" in this course, you should not take it.

Two students will co-lead class discussion each class once on a Tuesday and once on a Thursday.

Students who co-lead class will also give a quiz (two questions) at the beginning of the class they co-lead.

Missed quizzes may be not be made up.

Late work may not be made up.

Assignment (two-parts) for each class:

A. Two discussion questions, numbered 1 and 2 and with your name at the bottom of the document, on each assigned reading or film are due by 5 p.m. on Mondays. And two discussion questions, numbered 1 and 2, on each assigned reading or film are due by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Email your questions in one word document (as an attachment) to me atat [email protected].

B. BIG WORDS (at least 3) defined :

Many of the readings will be difficult, partly because the vocabularies the writers use contain technical terms you probably won't know as well as "big words" you may not know. Since you can easily go to wiktionary to look up the meanings and etymologies of words you don't know, I ask that you include at least three words you had to look up with your discussion questions. That will help everyone in the class. And since this is an English class, you should want to expand your vocabulary, no? :) Words also have histories. You may want to consult the Oxford English Dictionary online through UF.

1. Got to Databases and type in "OED" and then hit "Find."

You will get to this page. Double click on "Oxford English Dictionary."

You will get to OED at this page, where you can look up words of interest.

To save time for class disucssion of the readings and / or films, I have put these policies online. Please read this page now and please read botht he short versions and the long version carefully.

Short Version:

This class cannot work unless you want to be here.

In other words, if you're going to be here, you really have to be here.
Therefore, in order to really be here, you have to want to be here.
In short, if you are going to be here, you really have to be here.

Long Version:

1. Preparation for class discussion. The price of admission to class is to bring a print, not electronic, copy of the readings with you to class. That means you will need to bring the original or a xerox. The printed out readings are your ticket. I will ask you to take them out at the beginning of class. Again, a paper copy is necessary. Kindles and pdfs on computers are not valid. Kindle and other ebook editions do have not have page numbers and do not have the same scholarly apparatus that print editions of books do. They are therefore unsuitable for class discussion. I prefer paper to electronic documents because the former is a codex, a random access machine, and far superior to online documents, all of which are scrolls, the storage device the codex replaced thousands of years ago. Kindles and other ebooks have no page numbers. Although it is possible to annotate online documents, it is much easier to annotate a paper document and to remember and find what you annotated or underlined where you did. You can even take longer notes on the flyleaves of a book. Some electronic documents have one advantage over paper documents: you can search a pdf or a kindle for a particular word or phrase and find it immediately. An electronic document that has been scanned from paper cannot be searched, however. You need to bring a copy of the assigned articles or book to class the day we are discussing it in detail, reading it closely. If you don't have a copy you cannnot effectively participate in class. Therefore, you must have a copy to be counted as present. Since we'll be talking about the readings in some detail, you'll need to be able to turn to the page we're discussing. If you do not have a print out, paper copy of the reading or readings, your own personal copy, I will ask you to go home.

2. Discussion questions. If you don't turn in the discussion questions, I count you as absent. In addition to writing the DQs, I ask that you write any "big" words you had to look up and their definitions. Depending on your vocabulary, you may need to look up a lot of words or only one or two. DQs without "big" words and their definitions will not count as passing work.

3. Lateness: If you come late to class after the second week of the semester. you will automatically fail the course. If you are taking a class that begins at 8:30, make sure you get up early enough to make it class on time. If you are thiking of taking a bus that may be late from time to time, take an earlier bus. Think of arriving to class as you would arriving for an airplane flight. Get there early or you will miss the class, just as you miss yor flight if you arrived late. I have adopted this policy because a late arrival is a disruption of the class (as is sleeping in class). By the third week of the semester, if you are one second late or twenty minutes late or any other amount of time late, the penalty you meet will be the same: an "E" in the course.

4. On two period class days, I will have us take a brief break (a minute or two) in the middle of class. If you have not made a reasonably valuable comment on the readings by then, I will ask you to go home rather than remain an uninspired bump bringing the mood of the class down. By "reasonably valuable comment" I mean a comment that make dense in he context of the discussion. Talking just to blurt out an irrelevant comment is not valuable. You will not receive better than a "C" in the course if you do not attend and participate in class. So even if all your written work is "A" level (or "B") but you have not participated in class discussion, you will receive a "C" for the course.

5. Computers are not allowed to be used in class. Please turn off your cell phones and computers before class. Take notes with paper and pen or pencil.

6. Attendance: Class attendance and participation are crucial to the success of this course. By "attendance" I mean not only being in class, but includes completing the assigned work for each class by the time it is due and arrving to class on time. (If you arrive late to class or if don't do the discussion questions, you are counted as absent.) By participate, I mean attend class, do the discussion questions, and speak up usefully in class so that a given conversation moves forward. Talking but not adding anything is not participating. You can participate by bringing up a topic, adding to someone else's point, or disagreeing, among other ways. Just making random comments that lead us nowhere does not count as participartion. If, in addition to not participating, you don't turn in written work, you will not pass the course. I take attendance, and late arrivals will be counted as absent. After the first few classes, when I have learned your names, I will take roll silently in class instead of taking it aloud.

You may miss two classes for whatever reason without offering an explanation to me. If you are absent one time or two times, in other words, do not give me an excuse. None is needed and none will be heeded. Missing more than two classes (for whatever reason) may result in a reduction of your final grade for the course, the degree of the reduction to be determined by me at my discretion (depending on the circumstances, I may not lower your final grade at all or I may lower your final grade to an "E"). Missing four classes (or more) means either that you need to withdraw from the course or that, if you do not withdraw, you will get an "E" as your final grade.

Why do I have these policies?

Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert (Editor), Susan H. Gillespie Essays on Music

Written and Related Work: Co-lead class discussion twice, once on a Tuesday and once on a Thursday, discussion questions for each class; and three 2,000 word papers.

Class attendance and participation are crucial to the success of this course. You will not receive better than a "C" in the course if you do not participate in class. (By participate, I mean attend class, do the discussion questions, and speak up usefully in class so that a given conversation moves forward. You can bring up a topic, add to someone else's point, or disagree. Just making random comments that lead us nowhere does not count as participation. If, in addition to not participating, you don't turn in written work either, you will not pass the course. I take attendance, and late arrivals will be counted as absent. If you don't bring the reading with you, I count you as absent.

LATE WORK WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

Ground rules for class:

Please email me only to send me your assignments. Otherwise, contact me in person after class or during office hours.

No breaks during class (plan ahead).

Turn off your lap-top computers, ipads, and cell phones during class.

Come to class on time. If you enter after the door to the classroom has closed, I will consider you late; and I will count you as absent.

Please turn off your cell phones during class. Do not leave during class. If you do, I will you count you absent.

Please put your last name first in the subject header of all microsoft word documents you send me. Example: Bush.doc

Please put your first and last name at the bottom of your discussion questions.

Please put your last name in the title of all word documents you email me. Here's an example: Burt.doc Be sure to put your name in the word document and title your paper descriptively (not "Paper #1") too!

Please email me only to send me class assignments. Otherwise, please talk to me after class or during office hours.

ALL WRITTEN WORK YOU SEND ME BY EMAIL MUST BE MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS.

If you have any questions about the course, please ask them of me in class or during office hours. Contact me by email only to send me your assignments. Also, put your last name first in the title of any attached document you send me and put you name in the word documents.

NB: When doing your papers, I expect you to be able to "quote" images from the film. By "quote" I mean capture images and insert them into you word documents. In other words, you must be able to capture a image from the DVD of each shot and insert it into your text. I require screen captures because they actually help you "read" the film as well as give your reader more information. It's like writing about a poem from memory without being able to quote any lines versus having the poem in front of you and being able to quote lines from it.

PLEASE NOTE that the schedule webpage for this course is tentative and may be frequently revised during the semester. You may wish to print out a copy, but do check the website before each class to double check for any changes. The current version of this website is the binding one.

Please download all online readings now at the UF e-course reserve webpage. Create a folder on your computer and put them in it. If you are unable to access the readings, I don't consider that a valid excuse for not reading them, turning in discussion questions on them, printing them out, and and bringing them to class.

All documents should be formatted using Ariel 12 point font.

To Repeat: All assigned work for the course must be completed and be of passing quality to pass the course. This is not a course where you can do 70 percent of the work and expect to get a C in the course. To get a C in the course, you need to do 100 percent of the work at C level. Because of the number of students in the class, I may not notice that you have not been completing the work until the end of the term. In that case, you will receive an E.

1. Co-leading class with one or two other students on a Thursday. Though this class is relatively large, I will not run it as a lecture. Instead, I will ask 2-3 of you, in consultation with me, to lead class once during the term. You will lead class discussions. I will talk with you in advance about how to prepare and I will of course also participate in discussion. I will ask each one of you to prepare a close analysis of one scene from the film of your choice. You need to let each other know which scene you want to do so that you don't duplicate each other's efforts. Also, please cc me in your email correspondence. Thanks. To get credit for this part of the course, you must email me and the other students leading discussion your notes and questions (at least two pages) 24 hours before the class you'll lead.

2. Report in class on a Thursday (on a film or text I will discuss with you).

2. Discussion Questions. Two discussion questions on each reading on Tuesdays and two discussion questions eon each film discussed on Thursdays are due by 5 p.m. the day before the readings or film are discussed in class. Please put your name after the questions you email me (at [email protected] --that is a deliberate misplelling of my first name) at the bottom of your email. Please print out the questions after I post them either online or by email, read them over, and then bring the print out with you to class.This format can work extremely well, but it can only work and work well if all of you are equally prepared for discussion and only if you in fact do participate in class. You should be just as prepared to discuss on days you are not leading discussion as on days you are. The point of the questions is (a) that you do the readings and watch the films carefully (analytically); (b) that you come prepared to class to talk about the reading or film concretely; and (c) that you get practice for writing your papers and flim clip exercise (your papers will depend on your noticing the kinds of things in the readings and film that draw you to formulate questions about them. To this end, I will ask all of you email me two discussion topics (3-4 sentences) and discussion questions (at least one) about each reading and each film assigned for each class. I will then post these questions with your names on the course website or email them to you via the class email listerv before class. The day you lead class, you need not do the discussion questions. Please put the name of the class in your email title, and please put your name in your emailed topic / discussion questions after your questions. (That just makes it easier for me to copy them on to this page.) Please make sure the questions are your own (taking them from imdb, wikipedia, or any other uncredited source is plagiarism), and please make them as concrete as possible (addressed to a specific aspect of the reading or film). Please limit your question to the film itself (don't bother with production or reception histories). Your questions should arise from a close reading of the film or reading. Your questions may or may not come up in class, but all students should read all of them.

Be sure to bring the assigned book or a print copy of all assigned eletronic readings and bring it with you to class. If you don't bring the reading(s) with you, I count you as absent.

3. No unexcused late work will be accepted.

5. All assignments (double spaced, and that includes indented quotations) in Ariel 12 point font must be electronically delivered to me via email in a Microsoft Word document at [email protected].

6. Attendance. You may miss two classes for whatever reason without offering an explanation to me. Attendance includes completing the assigned work for each class and being to class on time. (If you don't do the discussion questions, for example, you are counted as absent.) Your physical presence in class is not enough for you to be counted as present. If you come to class late or if you come to class without having completed the assignment for that class, I will count you as absent. After the first few classes, when I have learned your name, I will take roll silently in class. You may miss one class for whatever reason without offering an explanation to me. Funerals, colds, weddings, etc., are all covered by the two absences. Be sure to bring the assigned book or print copies of all assigned electronic readings and bring it with you to class. If you don't bring the reading(s) with you, I count you as absent. You will not receive better than a "C" in the course if you do not participate.

7. Please arrive to class on time. It's just a common courtesy to me and to your fellow students. In addition to being irritating, lateness is not excused, and late arrivals will be counted as absent. Please turn off your cell phone.

8. Please be sure to bring the assigned reading(s) to class the day we are discussing it or them. We'll be reading a lot of often difficult material very closely, and it will be essential that you have the text open in front of you.

9. All films will be screened Tuesday evenings, periods E1-E3 (7:00-10:00) in Rolfs 115.

10. Please put your last name in the title of all word documents you email me. Be sure to put your name in the word document too!

11. It is your responsibility to check the schedule webpage before each class and complete all assignments on time. If you miss work and do not contact me to ask about an excuse, you will not receive credit, nor will I notify you. It is your responsibility to be aware of any assignments and either complete them or notify me and explain why you could not complete them should you have a valid excuse.

12. UF policy mandates that all students have access to a computer. You will need to access a computer and your email daily, and if you have a problem doing so on a particular day, it is responsibility to let me know in class and turn in any assigned work due on paper at the beginning of the class it is due.

13. Extra credit work is not an option, nor is make up work for unexcused classes.

14. If you miss a conference or other appointment to see me in person and then miss it without having cancelled at least 24 hours in advance, I won't reschedule the appointment.

15. To receive a "C" or above on your written work, your written prose must be free of grammatical errors, spelling errors, and typos.

16. There will be a number of unannounced pop quizzes in class. If you fail a pop quiz, I will count you as absent that day.

17. Final Grades:

Your final grade for the course will be based on the how you meet the following criteria:

i. Participation, including in class pop quizzes, and film analysis quizzes: 30 percent. You must participate in class disussion to get better than a "C" grade in this course. In addition to talking in class (5 percent), participation breaks down into three other components. (A) Leading classes: 10 percent . (The days you lead class, you need not do the discussion questions.) To get credit for this part of the course, you must email me and the other students leading discussion your notes and questions (at least two pages) 24 hours before the class you'll lead or give a report.; (B) discussion questions for each class: 10 percent (pass / fail). and (C) pass pop quizzes in class (5 percent). If you fail a quiz, I will count you as absent that day. Passing this part of the course requires that you complete all of the discussion questions; moreover, each set of discussion questions must be thoughtful contributions, not perfunctory exercises, in order to receive passing credit. Please remember to put your name at the bottom of the email, after the three (or more, depending on the number of readings) questions. (The day you lead class, you need not do the discussion questions.) Print out copies of all assigned online readings and bring them to class. If you don't have copies of these readings with you in class, I will mark you as absent.

ii. A film clip analysis exercise and two persuasive (analytical) essays of 1,500-2000 words (approximately 5-6 pages) each, twelve point font microsoft word document. Going under or over the word count means a failing grade. Focus your papers on a theoretical problem raised by the readings in relation to two films, one a Western and one film noir. on one or two scenes from each film. Read the texts and films closely to make both a point about specific passages and specific scenes, and, by extension, about the films from which the scenes are taken. I strongly recommend making use of relevant image captures (with eight as the maxmimum). Your papers not opinion pieces (like newspaper movie reviews), but analytical, persuasive essays. See the paper guidelines webpage. For due dates, please see the scehdule webpage. (Email each paper to me at [email protected]). If your document is too large to send as an email attachment, send it to me through pando. Please put your last name first in the microsoft word documents you email or pando me. Example: Burt.doc

iii. Pass film analysis quiz in class.

All parts of the course (i-iii above) must be completed and turned in on time to pass the course.

All assigned work for the course must be completed and be of passing quality to pass the course. This is not a course where you can do 70 percent of the work and expect to get a C in the course. To get a C in the course, you need to do 100 percent of the work at C level. Because of the number of students in the class, I may not notice that you have not been completing the work until the end of the term. In that case, you will receive an E.

Class attendance and participation are crucial to the success of this course. You will not receive better than a "C" in the course if you do not participate. (By participate, I mean attend class, do the discussion questions, and speak up usefully in class so that a conversation moves forward. Just making random comments that lead us nowehere does not count as participartion. If, in addition to not partiicpating, you don't turn in written work either, you will not pass the course.)

Plagiarism. I expect that all written work turned in by you will be your own. Be sure to cite all outside sources, if you use any, and to attribute any quotations you use to their source(s). To learn how to reference source material properly, go to Diana Hacker's online Research and Documentation guide (Bedford Books/St. Martin's Press), which includes a section on citing electronic sources. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, a violation of the University's policies on academic honesty, and will result in an "F" for the course. If you have any questions about how to cite or quote secondary works or about what is or is not plagiarism, please ask me for clarification BEFORE you turn in your written work. You will not be penalized for asking, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Email Ettiquette: All assigned work for the course must be completed and be of passing quality to pass the course. This is not a course where you can do 70 percent of the work and expect to get a C in the course. To get a C in the course, you need to do 100 percent of the work at C level. Because of the number of students in the class, I may not notice that you have not been completing the work until the end of the term. In that case, you will receive an E.

Please put your last name first in the subject header of all microsoft word documents you send me. Example: Bush.doc

Please put your first and last name at the bottom of your discussion questions.

Please email me only to send me class assignments. Otherwise, please talk to me after class or during office hours.

ALL WRITTEN WORK YOU SEND ME BY EMAIL MUST BE MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS.

Many students use email addresses that give no indication of their names. If your email address does not indicate your name, please be sure to give your name in the subject heading of all your email messages to me, and please also indicate that you are taking English 4133 (unless the subject heading of your message makes this clear). (I teach other courses as well.)

Also, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, please be aware that this class will make extensive use of the course website and email. The current version of the website is the binding one. Please make sure that if you have you do not currently access your gatorlink email account that you have all email from that account forwarded to your current email acount. I will be emailing you all through a class listserv, and this listserv uses your "@ufl.edu" gatorlink email address. Typically, I will be sending you several emails a week, so make sure that you are able to get them.