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WR 139W -- A Matter of Taste: Identity and Empowerment in Literature
Section 33501
M/W/F 1:00-1:50
HG 2320
Instructor: Danielle Domzalski
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: M 11am-12pm, F 12-1pm
Office: HG 3230
Primary Texts
William Dean Howells. The Rise of Silas Lapham. Signet Classics. 978-0451528223
Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Books. 978-0385474542
Supplementary Texts (print items provided on course website / movies available online)
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984. [excerpts]
Tak Wing Chan & John H. Goldthorpe, “Social Status and Cultural Consumption.” Introduction to Social Status and Cultural Consumption. Ed. Tak Wing Chan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Mark Greif, “The Hipster in the Mirror.” New York Times. Sunday Book Review. November 12, 2010.
Daniel Lieberfeld & Judith Sanders. “Here Under False Pretenses: The Marx Brothers Crash the Gates.” The American Scholar, 64:1. (Winter 1995), 103-108.
Joseph Addision and Sir Richard Steele. The Tatler (#108) & The Spectator (#409 and #411)
The Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. 1935.
Gattaca. 1997.
Course Overview
Writing 139W is a combination writing and research class that fulfills the upper-division writing breadth requirement for students in any major. You must have completed all prerequisite ESL and lower-division writing requirements before taking this course. WR139W may be taken pass/no pass unless your department requires that you take it for a letter grade.
The concept of “taste” is usually associated with ideas of personal judgment or preference, or with a person’s ability to assess objective aesthetic merit. However, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has proposed that taste is largely a function of social distinction, or the desire to mark ourselves as members of a particular community. Our section will explore the ways in which the concepts of taste and manners are employed in the construction of identity—a process which Bourdieu suggests is equally bound up with acts of exclusion. We will further develop this initial analysis by studying contrasting sociological theories, to explore how various cultures (and subcultures) construe aspects of taste in order to create or reinforce a sense of communal self—or, conversely, how individuals might use taste to distinguish themselves from others. How is taste a form of empowerment?
Assignments and Grading
Analytic Essay (5-6 pages): 25%
Annotated Bibliography: 15%
Prospectus: 10%
Research Paper (8-10 pages): 30%
Presentation: 5%
Weekly Responses (Weeks 1-7): 10%
Study Questions: 5%
Essays:
Analytic Essay 1 (5-6 pages): You will analyze rhetorical strategies in The Rise of Silas Lapham, considering the ways in which they support, complicate, or depart from current theories about the nature of taste and identity.
Annotated Bibliography: As you prepare for the research paper, you will be asked to provide an annotated bibliography with a minimum of twenty sources, fifteen of which must be sources you have found via research. Do not underestimate this assignment; it will require a great deal of work. At the same time, if done properly it should boost your overall course grade.
Research Prospectus (3-4 pages): As you construct your bibliography you will be thinking about your second paper. The prospectus is an outline in narrative form that proposes your paper topic, your argument, and your sources. The proposal is a formal, graded assignment, and should accordingly be polished and thoughtful.
Research Paper (8-10 pages): This is your capstone essay. You will select your own primary text (subject to my approval) and perform extensive research on the text’s historical, social, and aesthetic contexts, ultimately demonstrating how your chosen text uses issues of taste/manners to engage concepts of personal or social identity. The research paper will be expected to display strong critical thought, rhetorical polish, a persuasive claim, and (even more importantly) a solid and sophisticated argument that supports it. On the final day of class, you will give a two-minute presentation summarizing your argument.
Paper Formatting and Submission: All papers should be submitted using correct MLA or APA citations, with one-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman font, page numbers placed in the upper right corner, and a staple or clip—no dog ears! You want your paper to stand out because of your insightful thesis, not formatting mistakes that take only a few minutes to fix. Inconsistent style, whether MLA or APA, will lower your paper grade.
All final drafts must be submitted to Turnitin.com. I also require a rough draft for the first paper. For the research paper, you will instead submit both an annotated bibliography and a prospectus. However, you are strongly encouraged to speak with me during office hours at each stage of the writing process. Additional information will be available on our website.
Weekly Responses:
Each week by 1pm on Monday you are required to post a 350-400 word response to EEE’s MessageBoard or the DropBox. I will provide a prompt each week, which will usually ask you to respond to certain aspects of the homework readings or expand on previous class discussion. I will often ask you to print and bring your response to class, in order to facilitate class or group assignments.
Study Questions:
Prior to most classes, you will be assigned a few study questions which ask you to reflect upon your assigned reading. Take these questions seriously, because they will be directly relevant to our upcoming class discussion—and they will cumulatively prepare you for your analytical papers. Upload your answers to the EEE DropBox by class time in order to receive credit. Late homework will not be accepted.
Participation:
At the end of the quarter, if you are on the threshold of a higher grade, I will use your overall class participation to decide whether to bump your grade up, in order to reward those who have been committed to fostering class discussion.
Class Policies
Add/Drop Policy: The Add/Drop Policy for all courses in the School of Humanities states: A student may add or drop a course in the School of Humanities up to the end of the second week of classes. To add or drop the course, you must obtain an authorization code from the instructor. Requests to add or drop W139 after the second week will be granted only in exceptional circumstances and must be approved by the W139 course director. After the sixth week, students need the dean’s permission to drop.
Second-day Rule: This course requires that a student enrolled be present by the second meeting. If you are not there the first or second day of the course, and do not have a medical excuse, your seat will be given to someone else. You will then need to drop the course with a code from the instructor.
Academic Honesty: Plagiarism is defined as using another person’s ideas or words without proper acknowledgement. Academic dishonesty is grounds for failure in the course, and will be reported in a letter to the associate dean. You are expected to have read the university policy on academic honesty in the course schedule booklet and available at www.senate.uci.edu/manual.
Attendance: It is hard to participate in a class if you don’t attend, and it is impossible to talk about a text without having it in front of you. If you come to class without a hard copy of the assigned text and/or supplementary material in front of you, you will be counted as absent. More than three unexcused absences will affect your final grade, and may be grounds for failure. Two tardies (more than 5 minutes late) will be counted as one absence; every late arrival disrupts class and shows a lack of consideration for me and for your classmates.
Due Dates: Paper due dates for both working and final drafts represent firm deadlines. For each day that a required draft (rough or final) is late, your grade on the assignment will be dropped one-third of a letter grade (so a B becomes a B-; C+ becomes a C, etc.). I do not accept late weekly responses, and I do not give paper extensions, except in the case of an emergency. If you have a particular concern, please talk to me in advance.
If you must miss class: Email any assignments due that day to me ([email protected]); absence from class does not excuse you from submitting work by the start of class time. Email your classmates on the listserv ([email protected]) to ask what you missed.
Technology Policy: The use of cell phones and laptop computers is prohibited during class. Please keep them packed away, in order to avoid temptation. 139W is not a lecture course; it is heavily dependent on student discussion and participation—and computer screens (and other devices) are distracting. In addition, you will be close reading and marking up texts in class on a regular basis, and the best way to accomplish this is to write directly on the page. Therefore, please bring print copies of the relevant works with you to class each day.
Email Policies: Keep in mind that I am one resource among many. Before you e-mail me, you should always consider if you have adequately consulted other resources (syllabus, class website, class email listserv for more general questions). If you have determined that this is a question/concern that only I can address, then please send me a clear, concise message with a descriptive subject heading. Think of it as good practice for communicating in the professional world beyond UCI.
I do not read drafts over e-mail, except in special circumstances; I find that students get much more out of my comments if we can discuss them in person rather than leaving someone to puzzle out the best way to revise in accordance with my comments. If you want my feedback on any draft, plan to write it early and bring it to office hours (or set up an appointment with me) for one-on-one feedback.
I check my email frequently, and if you have ANY problems or last minute emergencies, email me ASAP and attach any relevant drafts and documents in .doc/x format. In general, you should allow 24-hour turn-around time on emails.
READING & ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
Week 1
Monday, 3/30: Class Introduction & Syllabus
Wednesday, 4/1: Pierre Bourdieu: Distinction (excerpts)
Fri, 4/3: Spectator # 409 & #411
Week 2
Monday, 4/6: Mark Greif: “The Hipster in the Mirror” / Tatler #108
Wednesday, 4/8: The Analytic Essay: Class Discussion
Friday, 4/10: Rise of Silas Lapham 1-3
Week 3
Monday, 4/13: Rise of Silas Lapham 4-7 / Individualization: Chan & Goldthorpe, 5-6
Wednesday, 4/15: Rise of Silas Lapham 8-11
Friday, 4/17: Rise of Silas Lapham 12-13
Week 4
Monday, 4/20: Omnivore/Univore: Chan & Goldthorpe, 7-10 / Rise of Silas Lapham 14-17
Wednesday, 4/22: Rise of Silas Lapham 18-20
Friday, 4/24: Rise of Silas Lapham 21-27
Week 5
Monday, 4/27: ANALYTIC ESSAY ROUGH DRAFT DUE: Draft Conferences
Wednesday, 4/29: Rise of Silas Lapham 25-27
Friday, 5/1: A Night at the Opera -- ANALYTIC ESSAY FINAL DRAFT DUE
Week 6
Monday, 5/4: Lieberfeld & Sanders, “The Marx Brothers Crash the Gates”
Wednesday, 5/6: Things Fall Apart 1-4
Friday, 5/8: Things Fall Apart 5-8
Week 7
Monday, 5/11: Class vs. Status: Chan & Goldthorpe, 14-15 / Things Fall Apart 9-12
Wednesday, 5/13: Things Fall Apart 13-17
Friday, 5/15: Things Fall Apart 18-21 -- ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Week 8
Monday, 5/18: Things Fall Apart 22-25
Wednesday, 5/20: Class Discussion: Building a Research Paper
Friday, 5/22: RESEARCH PROSPECTUS DUE -- CONFERENCES
Week 9
Monday, 5/25: NO CLASS – MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY
Wednesday, 5/27: Outline Peer Review
Friday, 5/29: Gattaca
Week 10
Monday, 6/1: In-class Peer Review – RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT DUE
Wednesday, 6/2: Two-Minute Presentations
Friday, 6/3: Two-Minute Presentations – RESEARCH PAPER DUE
WR 139W -- A Matter of Taste: Identity and Empowerment in Literature
Section 33501
M/W/F 1:00-1:50
HG 2320
Instructor: Danielle Domzalski
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: M 11am-12pm, F 12-1pm
Office: HG 3230
Primary Texts
William Dean Howells. The Rise of Silas Lapham. Signet Classics. 978-0451528223
Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Books. 978-0385474542
Supplementary Texts (print items provided on course website / movies available online)
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1984. [excerpts]
Tak Wing Chan & John H. Goldthorpe, “Social Status and Cultural Consumption.” Introduction to Social Status and Cultural Consumption. Ed. Tak Wing Chan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Mark Greif, “The Hipster in the Mirror.” New York Times. Sunday Book Review. November 12, 2010.
Daniel Lieberfeld & Judith Sanders. “Here Under False Pretenses: The Marx Brothers Crash the Gates.” The American Scholar, 64:1. (Winter 1995), 103-108.
Joseph Addision and Sir Richard Steele. The Tatler (#108) & The Spectator (#409 and #411)
The Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. 1935.
Gattaca. 1997.
Course Overview
Writing 139W is a combination writing and research class that fulfills the upper-division writing breadth requirement for students in any major. You must have completed all prerequisite ESL and lower-division writing requirements before taking this course. WR139W may be taken pass/no pass unless your department requires that you take it for a letter grade.
The concept of “taste” is usually associated with ideas of personal judgment or preference, or with a person’s ability to assess objective aesthetic merit. However, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has proposed that taste is largely a function of social distinction, or the desire to mark ourselves as members of a particular community. Our section will explore the ways in which the concepts of taste and manners are employed in the construction of identity—a process which Bourdieu suggests is equally bound up with acts of exclusion. We will further develop this initial analysis by studying contrasting sociological theories, to explore how various cultures (and subcultures) construe aspects of taste in order to create or reinforce a sense of communal self—or, conversely, how individuals might use taste to distinguish themselves from others. How is taste a form of empowerment?
Assignments and Grading
Analytic Essay (5-6 pages): 25%
Annotated Bibliography: 15%
Prospectus: 10%
Research Paper (8-10 pages): 30%
Presentation: 5%
Weekly Responses (Weeks 1-7): 10%
Study Questions: 5%
Essays:
Analytic Essay 1 (5-6 pages): You will analyze rhetorical strategies in The Rise of Silas Lapham, considering the ways in which they support, complicate, or depart from current theories about the nature of taste and identity.
Annotated Bibliography: As you prepare for the research paper, you will be asked to provide an annotated bibliography with a minimum of twenty sources, fifteen of which must be sources you have found via research. Do not underestimate this assignment; it will require a great deal of work. At the same time, if done properly it should boost your overall course grade.
Research Prospectus (3-4 pages): As you construct your bibliography you will be thinking about your second paper. The prospectus is an outline in narrative form that proposes your paper topic, your argument, and your sources. The proposal is a formal, graded assignment, and should accordingly be polished and thoughtful.
Research Paper (8-10 pages): This is your capstone essay. You will select your own primary text (subject to my approval) and perform extensive research on the text’s historical, social, and aesthetic contexts, ultimately demonstrating how your chosen text uses issues of taste/manners to engage concepts of personal or social identity. The research paper will be expected to display strong critical thought, rhetorical polish, a persuasive claim, and (even more importantly) a solid and sophisticated argument that supports it. On the final day of class, you will give a two-minute presentation summarizing your argument.
Paper Formatting and Submission: All papers should be submitted using correct MLA or APA citations, with one-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman font, page numbers placed in the upper right corner, and a staple or clip—no dog ears! You want your paper to stand out because of your insightful thesis, not formatting mistakes that take only a few minutes to fix. Inconsistent style, whether MLA or APA, will lower your paper grade.
All final drafts must be submitted to Turnitin.com. I also require a rough draft for the first paper. For the research paper, you will instead submit both an annotated bibliography and a prospectus. However, you are strongly encouraged to speak with me during office hours at each stage of the writing process. Additional information will be available on our website.
Weekly Responses:
Each week by 1pm on Monday you are required to post a 350-400 word response to EEE’s MessageBoard or the DropBox. I will provide a prompt each week, which will usually ask you to respond to certain aspects of the homework readings or expand on previous class discussion. I will often ask you to print and bring your response to class, in order to facilitate class or group assignments.
Study Questions:
Prior to most classes, you will be assigned a few study questions which ask you to reflect upon your assigned reading. Take these questions seriously, because they will be directly relevant to our upcoming class discussion—and they will cumulatively prepare you for your analytical papers. Upload your answers to the EEE DropBox by class time in order to receive credit. Late homework will not be accepted.
Participation:
At the end of the quarter, if you are on the threshold of a higher grade, I will use your overall class participation to decide whether to bump your grade up, in order to reward those who have been committed to fostering class discussion.
Class Policies
Add/Drop Policy: The Add/Drop Policy for all courses in the School of Humanities states: A student may add or drop a course in the School of Humanities up to the end of the second week of classes. To add or drop the course, you must obtain an authorization code from the instructor. Requests to add or drop W139 after the second week will be granted only in exceptional circumstances and must be approved by the W139 course director. After the sixth week, students need the dean’s permission to drop.
Second-day Rule: This course requires that a student enrolled be present by the second meeting. If you are not there the first or second day of the course, and do not have a medical excuse, your seat will be given to someone else. You will then need to drop the course with a code from the instructor.
Academic Honesty: Plagiarism is defined as using another person’s ideas or words without proper acknowledgement. Academic dishonesty is grounds for failure in the course, and will be reported in a letter to the associate dean. You are expected to have read the university policy on academic honesty in the course schedule booklet and available at www.senate.uci.edu/manual.
Attendance: It is hard to participate in a class if you don’t attend, and it is impossible to talk about a text without having it in front of you. If you come to class without a hard copy of the assigned text and/or supplementary material in front of you, you will be counted as absent. More than three unexcused absences will affect your final grade, and may be grounds for failure. Two tardies (more than 5 minutes late) will be counted as one absence; every late arrival disrupts class and shows a lack of consideration for me and for your classmates.
Due Dates: Paper due dates for both working and final drafts represent firm deadlines. For each day that a required draft (rough or final) is late, your grade on the assignment will be dropped one-third of a letter grade (so a B becomes a B-; C+ becomes a C, etc.). I do not accept late weekly responses, and I do not give paper extensions, except in the case of an emergency. If you have a particular concern, please talk to me in advance.
If you must miss class: Email any assignments due that day to me ([email protected]); absence from class does not excuse you from submitting work by the start of class time. Email your classmates on the listserv ([email protected]) to ask what you missed.
Technology Policy: The use of cell phones and laptop computers is prohibited during class. Please keep them packed away, in order to avoid temptation. 139W is not a lecture course; it is heavily dependent on student discussion and participation—and computer screens (and other devices) are distracting. In addition, you will be close reading and marking up texts in class on a regular basis, and the best way to accomplish this is to write directly on the page. Therefore, please bring print copies of the relevant works with you to class each day.
Email Policies: Keep in mind that I am one resource among many. Before you e-mail me, you should always consider if you have adequately consulted other resources (syllabus, class website, class email listserv for more general questions). If you have determined that this is a question/concern that only I can address, then please send me a clear, concise message with a descriptive subject heading. Think of it as good practice for communicating in the professional world beyond UCI.
I do not read drafts over e-mail, except in special circumstances; I find that students get much more out of my comments if we can discuss them in person rather than leaving someone to puzzle out the best way to revise in accordance with my comments. If you want my feedback on any draft, plan to write it early and bring it to office hours (or set up an appointment with me) for one-on-one feedback.
I check my email frequently, and if you have ANY problems or last minute emergencies, email me ASAP and attach any relevant drafts and documents in .doc/x format. In general, you should allow 24-hour turn-around time on emails.
READING & ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE
Week 1
Monday, 3/30: Class Introduction & Syllabus
Wednesday, 4/1: Pierre Bourdieu: Distinction (excerpts)
Fri, 4/3: Spectator # 409 & #411
Week 2
Monday, 4/6: Mark Greif: “The Hipster in the Mirror” / Tatler #108
Wednesday, 4/8: The Analytic Essay: Class Discussion
Friday, 4/10: Rise of Silas Lapham 1-3
Week 3
Monday, 4/13: Rise of Silas Lapham 4-7 / Individualization: Chan & Goldthorpe, 5-6
Wednesday, 4/15: Rise of Silas Lapham 8-11
Friday, 4/17: Rise of Silas Lapham 12-13
Week 4
Monday, 4/20: Omnivore/Univore: Chan & Goldthorpe, 7-10 / Rise of Silas Lapham 14-17
Wednesday, 4/22: Rise of Silas Lapham 18-20
Friday, 4/24: Rise of Silas Lapham 21-27
Week 5
Monday, 4/27: ANALYTIC ESSAY ROUGH DRAFT DUE: Draft Conferences
Wednesday, 4/29: Rise of Silas Lapham 25-27
Friday, 5/1: A Night at the Opera -- ANALYTIC ESSAY FINAL DRAFT DUE
Week 6
Monday, 5/4: Lieberfeld & Sanders, “The Marx Brothers Crash the Gates”
Wednesday, 5/6: Things Fall Apart 1-4
Friday, 5/8: Things Fall Apart 5-8
Week 7
Monday, 5/11: Class vs. Status: Chan & Goldthorpe, 14-15 / Things Fall Apart 9-12
Wednesday, 5/13: Things Fall Apart 13-17
Friday, 5/15: Things Fall Apart 18-21 -- ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
Week 8
Monday, 5/18: Things Fall Apart 22-25
Wednesday, 5/20: Class Discussion: Building a Research Paper
Friday, 5/22: RESEARCH PROSPECTUS DUE -- CONFERENCES
Week 9
Monday, 5/25: NO CLASS – MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY
Wednesday, 5/27: Outline Peer Review
Friday, 5/29: Gattaca
Week 10
Monday, 6/1: In-class Peer Review – RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT DUE
Wednesday, 6/2: Two-Minute Presentations
Friday, 6/3: Two-Minute Presentations – RESEARCH PAPER DUE