Week Four: Reading from a Position

Reading Assignment: This week I am asking you to read as much as you can of Jill Lepore's book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman.  She is an historian and a writer and discusses many of the contexts in which the orginal texts of Wonder Woman are embedded. In addition, to understand the character of Wonder Woman, you can read any of the comics I have put on the course resource page including some of the orginal versions of the character, of the character during the 1970s revival of the character and some from recent versions of the character.

Link to Interview with Gail Simone who recently wrote the character.

Writing Assignment: This week's writing assignment will start in-class. Using any of the information you gathered from reading The Secret History of Wonder Woman or from reading any of the Wonder Woman stories consider how you would design a Wonder Woman Theme Park World. What aspects of the character would you represent? What story would you tell? From what postition would you tell the story? How would visitors interact with the world and what aspects of the Wonder Woman story, both the historical background and the fictional character, would be highlighted? We will begin this assignment in this week's class, and you can choose to finish it for this week's post or simply respond to the book in the usual way. 

Week Three: Reading Mythology

This week we are reading True Grit by Charles Portis and considering the idea of a what a "western" might be. What are the assumptions that frequently accompany works in the genre of the western? 

In addition to looking at the way the mediascape can be divided into genres, we will also consider the deep cultural assumptions that go to shaping positions in the mediaverse like "national identity," and how these assumptions can become mythology, the often unquestioned expectations that frame our cultural experiences.  In thinking about True Grit, consider the values embedded in the work and how they are represented in this book. We will also consider how the presentation of values in this work might rise to the level of mythology.

Writing Assignment: Write a blog post describing how this novel and its film versions reflect or comment on American mythology. What assumptions about the nature of humans, about society and morality are embodied in this novel and the film versions. After you read the novel, please watch one/or both film versions of True Grit, the 2010 version directed by the Coen Brothers starring Jeff Bridges and the 1969 version directed by Henry Hathaway and starring John Wayne if you can. 

Costume Exhibit for the 2010 Movie of True Grit directed by the Coen Brothers

Myths of the Western Genre



Link to Edison recording of Mary from 1878.

Week Two: Austenworld Case Study of a Storyverse

Illustration from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Writing Assignment from First Class: For the first post on your blog for this course, please write a Prologue for yourself, much like the Wife of Bath has a prologue to the Tale we read of hers in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In your prologue give us a sense of where you are coming from as a reader. What do we need to know about you in order to best understand what you say and perception that you have. What are the assumptions that govern your sense of the world and how it works?  Try to give us 250-350 words on this prologue to you.

Reading Assignment: For our next class we are reading and viewing some texts that are part of the Jane Austen storyverse. The central text we will consider is Pride and Prejudice, the novel written by Jane Austen.  There are a number of remix variants that you might consider reading instead including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, soon to be released as a motion picture.  Because it is public domain Pride and Prejudice can be downloaded online for free from several sites. There are free versions of the text for kindles and nooks, and several audiobook versions, including free ones available. Consult the course resource page for links to texts for this week. 

Audiobooks: Listening to audiobook versions of readings for this class is perfectly acceptable and can be a good way to "read" the texts because you can do some other things while listening to the story being read to you. This is also a good way to deal with required texts if you have a history of difficulty with reading. You can download software that will read any pdf version of a text to you on your laptop. Some students do this for in-class reading as well, using headphones and their laptop. If your native language is something other than English, you are welcome to read the works, like this week's choice, that will be translated into your first language, if you choose.

Featured Film: The featured movie for the next class is Austenland (2013) directed by Jarusha Hess and produced by Stephanie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series. The most complete visual version of the orginal text is probably The Pride and Prejudice Mini-series (1995)starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. The is the favorite of many Janeites including the central character in Austenland. I am also suggesting Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-day Comedy (2003) dir. Andrew Black as an interesting movie varient with a production background that has influenced Austenland, and expecially Bride and Prejudice (2004) dir. Gurinder Chadha in which the story is turned into a Bollywood musical to excellent effect. The most recent big budget movie version of  Pride and Prejudice (2005) directed by Joe Wright is worth investigating especially to see this 18th century story take on a more 19th century reading and adaptation. Please watch at least one Jane Austen influenced film before the next class.

Here is a link to a page of Jane Austen Films organized chronologically.

Please read or listen to a version of Pride and Prejudice and bring your laptop or tablet to class. 

Next Week: We will be discussing genre and literature and reading a Great American Novel, True Grit by Charles Portis.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  fan art 

Week One: Your Position in the Mediascape

In Monday's first class in Literature and Media Studies we will discuss the oral tradition and the practice of the storyteller. We will also consider the patterns of paradigm shift in the media environment by reading and discussing one of the important early examples of English LIterature.

Before coming to class I am asking you to read The Wife of Bath's Prologue and The Wife of Bath's Tale from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's story is written in what we now call "Middle English" which is a version of the English spoken during the Middle Ages (from roughly 1150-1470. It differs from contemporary English enough to be difficult to read without an expert knowledge of the dialect.  You can try the original here, 
http://www.librarius.com/canttran/wftltrfs.htm
where you will find both the prologue and tale in Middle English.
Here is a link to probably the best way to read the text, which is an interlinear translation which means each line of the orginal text is followed by a modern translation. Here is a link to that version of the the text,
https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/wbt-par.htm#PROLOGUE

If you must, you can read the summary of the Prologue and Tale here, at the Cliff's Notes site, where there is a good condensed background on the Canterbury Tales and Chaucer as well as a plain language summary of the works.

You can have the prologue and tale read to you on youtube. Here is a link to those pages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du1ryviObsU for the tale and the prologue is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj7VmvkgCBs  There are several possible audio versions to choose from. 

In class we will review the basic policies of the class and the attendance and grading policies. Attendance will be taken each week and reported electronically.

Students can expect to read something and write something each week in the form of weekly assignments. Please bring your laptop or tablet to every class. Many weeks you can expect to read and write in-class.

All the writing done for this class must be mounted on a blog the student maintains for the semester. Blogger is the preferred choice as a blogging environment but you can use others if you insist. Please leave the privacy settings off and remember anyone can read comments you make in your blog. Please start a new blog for this course and don't use an old blog you have already created as to avoid possible confusion. Once you have created a blog please email me the url for your blog, indicating that you are in the Literature and Media Studies class.

Please read the Chaucer selection before you come to class on Monday morning I will see you then.


We wiwork on understanding positions in the mediascape and methods of defining our own lineage and outlooks. We are what we behold as much as we are what we eat. We will begin the class with a discussion of High and Low and a review of the course syllabus.

Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert Seldes

Next class we will be reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice or alternatively another work from the Austen storyverse. After reading the novel or the alternative, students will write a blog post discussing why the work does or does not have relevance to relationships today.

Remember next week is the Martin Luther King holiday and there will be no class. You will have two weeks, then to read Pride and Prejudice.