Week Seven: Lolita Response

This week we are working on our extended responses to Lolita. Be prepared this week to post a draft of your response before coming to class. In class we will read, critique and revise these responses. You response should be between 500-750 words long and should feature a discussion about a selected quotation from the book that you think reflects an important thread you see running through the work.

This week's reading assignment is to read the text of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. We will discuss this poem and the Beat movement in class. 

Next week we will reading Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage. Read the book and the writing assignment for next week is to compose your own page to be added to the book that expresses an observation you have about contemporary media.

Remember the midterm is approaching and all your blog posts for the first half of the semester should be posted on your blog by then.

Week Six: Lolita

Nabobov with butterfly

This week we are reading Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, one of the most controversial and most highly regarded novels of the 20th century. In this novel the author suceeds in subverting pretty much every attitude and value the reader brings to the text. Please read as much of the novel as you can before class. If you have already read Lolita read another of Nabokov's novels. Focus on choosing a passage from anywhere in the novel to discuss. Everyone in the class is expected to read and write about this novel.

The assignment for this week is to read the novel which we will discuss in class. You may begin to post your response to the novel on your blog if you wish but we will begin writing these responses in class.

In writing about the novel I am suggesting you select any passage from the novel and discuss the way the passage reflects themes, approaches, ideas or especially values developed in the novel as a whole.