ENG 48A (Justbooks 48A): Trash

Mary Baine Campbell

ENG 48a (JustBooks 48a): Trash

Spring 2015

Office: Rabb 263, extension 6-2146

Office hours: Tuesday 10:00-11:00, Thursday 10:30-12:00, and by appointment

This course is an examination of a single large concept—one that refers to what is socially devalued whether it is used kleenex, social classes, junk DNA, genre fiction, body organs or a floating continent of plastic water bottles the size of Texas. We will look at the larger idea of the valueless or the disposable, as well as creative responses to it on the part of workers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, poets and activists worldwide, from as many angles as a 14-week semester permits. As this course counts for credit towards the English major, we will be especially interested in poems, novels and films, but our scope and attention will overlap as well with human geography, sociology, environmental science, microbiology, art history, and social policy.

Texts: In addition to briefer readings and images I will make available on our LATTE page, and 3 films I will show in the evening, several books are available in the Bookstore. Please note: ONLY THESE EDITIONS WILL DO! We need to be all on the same page, for one thing: searching for alternate page numbers wastes class time and breaks momentum even when the editions are textually the same. In the case of classic texts and translations especially, they are not. I’ve chosen some of these editions for features that will be part of our discussion.

Edward Humes, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash (NY: Avery [Penguin Group], 2013) ISBN 13: 978-1583335239

Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, trans. Susan Bernofsky (W. W.Norton, 2014); ISBN-13: 978-0-393-34709-8

T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland (New York: Liveright Classics, 2012); ISBN-13: 978-0-87140-717-7

J. G. Ballard, Concrete Island (Picador, 2001); ISBN-13: 978-0312420345

A.R. Ammons, Garbage (Norton, 2002 [reissue]); ISBN-13: 978-0393324112

Rosie Cox, et al., Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life (exhibition catalogue, 2012) ISBN 13: 9781846684791

Thierry Bardini, Junkware: The Essential Junkiness of Our Culture and Biology (U of Minnesota P, 2011) ISBN 13: 978-0-8166-6751-2

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (Vintage, 2006); ISBN-13: 978-1400078776

You are expected in any class meeting oriented around a printed or printable text to bring that text to class, even if that means printing it out from a LATTE download. If you don’t have a printer or the Library printer stretches your budget, please let me know. I can create copies for you, but I need to know well ahead of time. One reason you need printouts is that it remains the easiest way to make notes and star or underline passages you want to discuss or query in class. No doubt Bill Gates will come up with something as easy as the pencil someday, but up to now he hasn’t.

Assignments: Grading is only rarely a useful tool for learning in the humanities, so I try to give mostly ungraded assignments. Each week except the week of March 24 you will write and post on LATTE at least one pithy (ungraded) paragraph on our readings or viewings for the week to come--up to one page. THESE ARE DUE ON LATTE NO LATER THAN 11:00 PM MONDAYS! This means posting by 10:00 pm, as posts take an hour to show up on LATTE. Each of you (sometimes two) will be responsible one week, starting Monday Jan. 26, for posting a 5-page (graded) paper for us to read and discuss: the paper can focus on or take off from anything we’re read or viewed so far. For a final project you will create a verbal, visual or sound text making use of trash, junk, garbage or detritus to produce a reflective and critical experience for others.

There will be a handout about the papers, as well as one on your final projects. We’ll discuss posting in class the first week: you should feel free to use this feature of the course in any way that suits your needs and passions so I don’t want to be too directive about it.

Attendance: As the Bulletin says, missing more than one week’s worth of a Brandeis course affects your grade. In our case that means you have two unexcused absences. There is no need to tell me why you are missing class: please don’t. Real crises happen sometimes after excused absences are used up, one’s own illness or serious illness in one’s family. That you can of course tell me about, and I’ll arrange to make up the class you missed with an hour one-on-one at our soonest convenience.

I’ll be away Thursday April 2 to present a paper at an annual conference, alas not scheduled according to the Brandeis calendar. To make this up I’ll hold a final optional meeting to screen and discuss, while consuming large quantities of pizza, a film version of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and a required meeting during our scheduled exam time on May 6, for displaying and playing with our final projects.

Plagiarism: The university requires us to remind you that this is strictly forbidden, easy to spot, and the rules enforced. However I’m happy to say I’ve almost never had a Brandeis student who tried it.

Students with disabilities: Please come see me as soon as you can so we can discuss how to organize assignments and other aspects of the course to your best advantage. I am also available for additional meetings to discuss class materials.

INTRODUCTION TO TRASH, GARBAGE, JUNK AND ART

Week of Jan. 13:

Henry Rollins, anecdote (Re/Search #11, Pranks, 1987)

Three poems: Brenda Coultas, “After the 11th” from “The Bowery Project” (how2, Spring 2002) and “Inventory of an Elaborate Pile of Garbage at 2nd Ave” (The Homemade Museum, 2003); Mary Leader, “Probate” (Red Signature, 1997)

Youtube: La Wilson, assemblage artist: (3: 47)

Week of Jan. 20

Edward Humes, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash (2013): Part I (pp. 1-141)

TRASH PEOPLE

Week of Jan. 27:

Film: Mai Iskander, Garbage Dreams (documentary, 2009)

Film showing Wednesday 6:30 pm

Fiction: Dorothy Allison, excerpts from Trash (2002): "Introduction: Stubborn Girls and Mean Stories" (page vii-xvi), "Deciding to Live: Preface to the First Edition" (page 1-7), "Mama" (page 33-47), "Gospel Song" (page 49-62), "Steal Away" (page 73-79)

Week of Feb. 3:

Installations: H. A. Schult, Trash People (1996--)

Short stories: Dorothy Allison, Trash (2002): cont.

Week of Feb. 10:

Novella: Frank Kafka, Metamorphosis (1915)

Week of Feb. 17:

SPRING BREAK

TRASH WORLD

Week of Feb. 24:

Long poem: T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland (1922, long poem)

Week of March 3:

Novella: J.G. Ballard, Concrete Island (1974)

Week of March 10:

Long poem: A. R. Ammons, Garbage: A Poem (1993)

RECYCLING

Week of March 17:

Film showings: Monday 6:30 pm and Wednesday 6:30 pm

Film: Lucy Walker, Waste Land (documentary, 2010)

Film: Oliver Hodge Garbage Warrior (documentary, 2008)

Week of March 24:

Report, on film in progress (shown in class): 60 Minutes segment on Landfill Harmonic (documentary, due 2015)

TRASH BIOLOGY

March 31 (no class April 2):

Catalogue raisonné: Rosie Cox, et al., Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life (exhibition catalogue, 2012), selected profusely illustrated essays: Virginia Smith, “Evacuation, Repair & Beautification: Dirt and the Body” (pp. 7-36) and in “To Love a Landfill: Dirt and the Environment,” both pieces, by R. H. Norne and Robin Nagle, pp. 175- 205. Don’t forget the notes in the back of the book! And don’t think of the pictures and photographs as secondary.

Week of April 7:

PASSOVER BREAK

Week of April 14:

Theoretical essays: Thierry Bardini, Junkware: The Essential Junkiness of Our Culture and Biology (2010): excerpts

Week of April 21:

Novel: Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)

Tuesday, April 28: NO CLASS: Brandeis Friday

Wednesday May 6, 6:00-9:00pm: Final projects, screening of Wall-E, pot luck.

Final projects: we will get together to share these during the period scheduled for our final exam (but there will be no exam): Wednesday May 6, 6:00-9:00 pm. Potluck supper. In the case of written projects you can read aloud an excerpt. All projects should then be posted, represented by images or sound recordings, or described on LATTE (available by 9 a.m. the next day). All projects must be accompanied by a short account (2 or 3 pages) of what you learned while working on it and what you took from the course in the design and production of it.