DEFINING THE MODERN AND POST-MODERN SELF

JAMES KING

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will consist of EIGHT sessions (morning and afternoon) consisting of lectures, discussions and screenings devoted to the presentation of the self in modern and contemporary literature and film. Although various theoretical approaches will be integrated into the lectures, the focus of the course will concentrate on how twentieth-century literature and film defined and presented the self. What is the nature of subjectivity (the self as shown in a work of literature or film)? What was new about the twentieth-century’s presentation of subjectivity? What are the various approaches taken to subjectivity? Other topics: meta-fictionality, gender issues, post-colonialism, feminism, masculinity, new historicism, the spectacle.

Copies of the literary texts will be made available to all participants. I will incorporate five articles (listed below) into my lectures and will have copies available for anyone who wishes to read or photocopy them.

WEEK ONE: Defining the Insubstantial Modern Subject

1.The Subjectivity of the Author: Modern Attempts to Penetrate the Consciousness of Jane Austen. MORNING: DVD Becoming Jane; AFTERNOON: Lecture. The lecture will show how the film deals with the iconic status of Jane Austen; I shall also talk about how early modern subjectivity differs markedly from modern subjectivity. To do this, I shall discuss the historical realities of Austen’s world and how individuals saw themselves in the early modern period (sixteenth through eighteenth centuries). I will then contrast this information to modern concepts of the individual.

2.Guilt, Shame and Subjectivity   MORNING: Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (DVD); AFTERNOON James Joyce’s “Araby” and “Eveline”. The film and the two literary texts deal with disintegration: how did the notion of subjectivity change during the twentieth century? I will discuss the notion of disguise as one central to literary texts and will talk about masculinity (an area of theoretical interest which has become an important sub-division within gender studies.) I will also address the issue of post-colonialism in Joyce as a prelude to next week’s treatment of Conrad. ARTICLE ONE: See Vincent J. Cheng, “Of Canons, Colonies, and Critics: The Ethics and Politics of Postcolonial Joyce Studies,” (224-45) in Re: Joyce.

WEEK TWO: Defining the Modern Subject as Colonizer and Sexual Being

3.Subjectivity and the Colonial Enterprise Joseph Conrad: TEXT: MORNING. Lecture on selections from HEART OF DARKNESS; afternoon, lecture and showing of some portions of Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW [DVD]. What exactly was wrong with post-colonialism according to Conrad? What “take” does Conrad give us on the emotion of sympathy? What is Coppola’s attitude towards post-colonialism and how much does it differ from Conrad’s? Conrad’s view of the feminine in Heart of Darkness will be emphasized. ARTICLE TWO. See Lisa Schneider, “Iconography and the Feminine Ideal,” (9-32) in Conrad’s Narratives of Difference. I will use Schneider’s observations as the starting point for Lecture Three.

4.Sex and Subjectivity; Feminine Subjectivity D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf TEXTS: MORNING Lawrence’s “The Prussian Officer”; AFTERNOON: Excerpts from Mrs. Dalloway. Lawrence was deeply influenced by Freud in his writings, but he also had severe reservations about psychoanalytical interpretations of the self. Virginia Woolf attempted to find a completely new take on literature by introducing feminine aspects into it. How successful was she? Is such a thing possible? ARTICLE THREE. See Pamela L. Caughie, “Introduction: Taking Issue,” Virginia Woolf and Postmodernism (1-28).

5.Working-Class Subjectivity: Harold Pinter: The Homecoming MORNING: Screening of DVD; AFTERNOON lecture. Pinter has many interesting insights into the realms of the masculine and female. He also is fascinated with class, power and the surreal.

WEEK THREE: Defining the Modern Subject within Class; The Post-Modern Subject

6.The Post-Modern Subject. Excerpts from Nabokov’s Pale Fire; excerpts from Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot. Both these authors take the stance of high modernist authors such as Conrad or Woolf, but they create characters that are decidedly post-modern. Excerpts [DVD] from Schrader’s Mishima and Cavanii’s Ripley’s Game. Schrader takes a very post-modernist approach to the great Japanese modernist writer, and Cavanii’s take on Ripley is very different from Minghella’s.

Cinema as a Modernist Instrument: Looking and Not-Seeing the Self

7.Subjectivity as Watching and Waiting Alfred Hitchcock: MORNING: Screening of REAR WINDOW; AFTERNOON Lecture and screening of some scenes from VERTIGO [DVD] According to Hitchcock, the best films are about the act of watching. Why is this an intrinsic aspect of his art? What does he have to say about subjectivity? ARTICLEFOUR : Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”

8.Further Post-Modern Subjectivities Antonioni and Cortázar: MORNING screening of BLOW-UP [DVD] and AFTERNOON lecture and Cortázar’s short story of the same name Antonioni’s film returns us to the world of Ripley and the search for the self, but both the Italian film director and Cortázar are post-modern in their treatments of subjectivity. ARTICLE FIVE: Alan Spiegel, “The Oval of Vision,” from Fiction and the Camera Eye

美国普林斯顿大学文学博士 加拿大麦克·马斯特大学杰出教授

教学经历 1970-1 助教，蒙特利尔Loyola 大学

1971-77 助教，麦克·马斯特大学

1977-83 副教授，麦克·马斯特大学

1983- 教授，麦克·马斯特大学

1996- 杰出教授，麦克·马斯特大学

所获奖项

1967-68 伍德罗·威尔逊奖学金

1967-68 霍普金斯福特奖学金，普林斯顿大学

1967-69 Osgood奖学金，普林斯顿大学 1969-70 加拿大议会博士奖金 1980-1981 John Simon Guggenheim奖金（因发表关于William Cowper的传记作品获奖）

1988-90 Killam科研奖金（因发表关于Herbert Read的传记作品获奖）

所获荣誉和奖励

1988：传记《内在的风景——Paul Nash的一生》获得1987年度人文历史最佳图书奖，本人被授予约克郡邮报人文艺术奖

1991年：作品《最后一个现代人——Herbert Read的一生》获得非小说类作品总督奖 1993年：当选为加拿大皇家科学院成员

1995年：非小说类作品《Verginia Woolf的一生》被出版家周刊评为1995年美国最佳出版物

1995年：入选加拿大名人录

1996年：《Verginia Woolf的一生》被Hamilton & Region 人文委员会评为当年最优秀书籍

1996年：当选为麦克马斯特大学杰出教授，终身享有此项荣誉。教授本人为获得此项殊荣的唯一一位人文类教授，在该大学可同时享有此项荣誉的教授不超过7人。

1997年：传记《Margaret Laurencede的一生》获得加拿大当年非小说类作品最佳图书奖 原创作品：传记类：《William Cowper的一生》,《William Blake的一生》《内在的风景——Paul Nash的一生》《最后一个现代人——Herbert Read的一生》《Virginia Woolf的一生》《Margaret Laurencede的一生》《Jack:与他生命中的作家朋友》《Farley Mowat的一生》小说：《伪装》《蓝月亮》《变形记》《绝对发明》