Schedule:
Meeting
One:
Charles Bernstein, Selections from Postmodern American Poetry
Hal Foster, Introduction to The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture
Jean-François Lyotard, Selections from The Postmodern Condition
Meeting
Two:
Fredric Jameson, “Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” The Anti-Aesthetic
John Cage, Selections from
Postmodern American Poetry
David Antin, Selections from Postmodern American Poetry
Meeting
Three:
Pierre Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel DuChamp
Marcel DuChamp, Select artworks
Gimme Shelter: The Rolling Stones, Uncut, Uncensored, Unsurpassed
Meeting
Four:
Antonin Artaud, “To Have Done With the Judgment of God.” Selected Writings.
“Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society.” Selected Writings.
Allen Ginsberg, Postmodern American Poetry (Selections).
Jim Morrison, Select lyrics
Meeting
Five:
Amiri Baraka, Blues People: Negro Music in White America.
Jimi Hendrix, Selected lyrics.
Meeting
Six:
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” Dialectic of Enlightenment.
Public Enemy. Selected lyrics.
A Tribe Called Quest. Selected lyrics.
Meeting
Seven:
Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil.
Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism
Walter Benjamin, “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Illuminations.
Meeting
Eight:
Bob Dylan, Lyrics, 1962-1985.
Simone de Bouvier, Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Selections).
Janis Joplin, Selected lyrics.
Tom Waits, Beautiful Maladies.
Meeting
Nine:
Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968.
Robert Creeley, So There: Poems 1976-1983.
Postmodern American Poetry (Selections).
Longinus. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Selections).
Rationale:
The independent study will be similar to a “Literature and
Philosophy” course, only it will concentrate on popular culture (literature),
postmodernism (theory), and postmodern consumer culture (social context) in
particular. It will primarily
comprehend the lyrics of select contemporary poets and musicians, who together
have generated a “postmodern” literary canon, crafting culture both high and
low.
Objectives:
To investigate intersections between philosophy, poetics,
and postmodern culture, especially hybrids between contemporary philosophy,
poetry, and music.
Readings:
Artaud, Antonin.
“To Have Done With The Judgment of God.” Selected Writings. Ed. Susan Sontag. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1976.
---- . “Van
Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society.”
Selected Writings. Ed. Susan Sontag. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1976.
Baraka, Imamu Amiri.
Blues People; Negro Music in White America. New York: W. Morrow,
1963.
Baudelaire, Charles.
The Flowers of Evil. Ed. Marthiel and Jackson
Mathews. New York: New Directions, 1963.
Bernstein, Charles.
“Frames and Reference.” Content’s Dream: Essays
1975-1984. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University
Press, 2001.
---- . “Words
and Pictures.” Content’s Dream: Essays
1975-1984. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University
Press, 2001.
---- . “Three/Reading, Person, Philosophy.”
Content’s Dream: Essays 1975-1984.
Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press,
2001.
Benjamin, Walter.
Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Trans. Harry Zohn. London: Western Printing Services, 1973.
---- . “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction.”
Illuminations. Ed.
Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry
Zohn. New York: Schocken Books,
1968.
Cabanne, Pierre.
Dialogues with Marcel
Duchamp. New York: Da Capo
Press, 1987.
Cage, John. Empty Words: Writings ’73-’78. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University
Press, 1979.
Cohen, Leonard.
Selected Poems,
1956-1968. New York: Viking
Press, 1968.
Creeley, Robert. So There: Poems 19 76-83. New York: New Directions Books, 1998.
Dylan,
Bob. Lyrics, 1962-1985. New York:
Knopf, 1998.
Foster, Hal.
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on
Postmodern Culture. Washington:
Bay Press, 1983.
Gimme Shelter: The Rolling Stones, Uncut, Uncensored,
Unsurpassed. Dir. Albert and David Maysles. Abkco Films, 1991.
Ginsberg, Allen.
Howl and Other Poems.
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1996.
Hendrix, Jimi.
Select lyrics.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as
Mass Deception.” Dialectic of
Enlightenment. Trans. John
Cumming. New York: Continuum,
2001.
Joplin, Janis.
Select lyrics.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition. (Chapters 1-5) Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian
Massumi. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1984.
Morrison, Jim.
Select lyrics.
Postmodern American Poetry
Waits, Tom.
Beautiful Maladies.
New York: Music Sales, 1997.
Nature of Study:
The course will largely consist of independent reading and
in-depth discussion of the texts in consultation with the
professor.
Role of Professor:
The professor will provide background for the texts, their
context, and the theoretical issues that they raise; offer feedback on the
literary analyses and interpretations that the student will present each week;
and provide detailed commentary on the final essay.
Frequency of Meetings:
The 1½-hour meetings will occur every week and a half
throughout the semester.
Papers:
Along with brief response papers for each meeting, the
student will write one eight-page paper, incorporating at least two of the
primary texts and two of the philosophical sources listed above, as well as a
significant amount of secondary criticism.