Narrative and the Cinema: The Road in Postwar U.S. Culture   Instructor: Rob Latham

 

Course Times: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9:30-10:45 AM Weekly Video Screenings: Tuesdays 4:15-7 PM Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30-4 PM EPB room 455; phone 335-0465

Required Texts (available at Prairie Lights Bookstore): Jack Kerouac, On the Road Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Cynthia Kadohata, The Floating World Bayard Johnson, Damned Right Ernest Hebert, Mad Boys Stephen Wright, Going Native

Description: The sprawling horizons of the road have provided a potent arena for narrative exploration for much of U.S. history, but the postwar period has seen an unprecedented explosion of literary and filmic texts centered on the road as a peculiarly charged site of desire and suspense, danger and possibility. Over the last four decades, the road genre has evolved a basic repertoire of narrative models--stories of flight and pursuit, of identity-loss and self-discovery, of utopian yearning crashing into bleak reality--that will be familiar to anyone who has read novels ranging from Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Stephen Wright's Going Native, or viewed films like Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise, and My Own Private Idaho. This course will survey a representative range of road texts from the 1950s to the 1990s, analyzing them as a self-contained corpus with a developing intertextual complexity, but it will also explore points of connection between individual texts and their historical moments.

Requirements/Grading: Students are expected to have done all the required reading by classtime; students must also attend the weekly film screenings. The grading will be as follows: 10% daily reading/viewing journal; 30% first take-home essay exam, due during Week 7; 30% second take-home essay exam, due during Week 14; and 30% final exam. Students who would like to substitute a topic paper for the second take-home exam are encouraged to do so. All grades will be numerical; the final grade will average and convert these to letter form, on the following scale: 97-99 = A+; 93-96 = A; 90-92 = A-; 87-89 = B+; 83-86 = B; 80-82 = B-; 77-79 = C+; 73-76 = C; 70-72 = C-; 67-69 =D+; 63-66 = D; 60-62 = D-; below 60 = F. Final grades will be rounded up on a .5 scale (for example, a final grade of 82.6 would be a B rather than a B-); however, students who have contributed substantially (in terms of quality, not simply quantity) to class discussions will be rounded up more generously--specifically, on a scale of 2.5 rather than .5 (so that, for example, a final grade of 87.6 would be an A- rather than a B+).   Explanation of Assignments: The reading/viewing journal should briefly record observations, ideas, questions, and/or criticisms inspired by the assigned texts and films. Journal entries will be collected before class every day; they will not be graded individually, but a grade will be assigned to them in toto at semester's end. The two take-home exams will be essay-format responses to questions distributed during the previous week(s). The paper option, as substitute for the second exam, would be on a topic of your choosing (in consultation with me, and only with my prior approval); while it must be synthetic, treating several of the assigned texts, it may take any angle of approach to these texts and may argue any point of view. The final exam will include objective and essay sections. Format for Take-home Essays/Paper: The text of your essays/papermust be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11-inch unruled paper, with one-inch margins all around and no font size larger than 12-point type; it must be proofread for typoes, misspellings, and minor grammatical errors. (These rules do not apply to the less formal journal entries, which need only be legible.)

Week 3. JOY RIDES Tues. 9/5: Rebel Without a Cause Screening: Dragstrip Teenpic Revue: one full feature plus brief excerpts selected from Devil on Wheels (1948), Dragstrip Girl (1957), Hot Rod Rumble (1957), Hot Rod Girl (1957), and others. Thurs. 9/7: Dragstrip Teenpics   Week 4. PURSUING YOUTH Tues. 9/12: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1957) Screening: Lolita (1962) Thurs. 9/14: Nabokov, cont'd; Lolita

 

Week 5. TRIPPING Tues. 9/19: Tom Wolfe, "On the Bus" * Screening: Easy Rider (1969), plus brief excerpts from Changes (1969), Thumb Tripping (1972), and Vanishing Point (1971) Thurs. 9/21: Easy Rider   Week 6. FLIPPING Tues. 9/26: Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) Screening: Two-Lane Blacktop (1972) Thurs. 9/28: Pirsig, cont'd   Week 7. CRASHING Tues. 10/3: Two-Lane Blacktop Screening: The Rain People (1969) Thurs. 10/5: The Rain People   Week 8. STALLING Tues. 10/10: Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) Screening: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) Thurs. 10/12: Robbins, cont'd   Week 9. ANGRY DRIVERS Tues. 10/17: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore Screening: Thelma and Louise (1991), plus brief excerpt from Leaving Normal (1992) Thurs. 10/19: Thelma and Louise

Week 10. FAMILY OUTING Tues. 10/24: Cynthia Kadohata, The Floating World (1989) Screening: Highway Patrolman (1994) Thurs. 10/26: Kadohata, cont'd; Highway Patrolman   Week 11. CRUISING THE RUINS Tues. 10/31: David Wojnarowicz, "In the Shadow of the American Dream: Soon All This Will Be Picturesque Ruins"--from Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration (1991) * Screening: My Own Private Idaho (1991), plus brief excerpts from The Living End (1992) & American Fabulous (1992) Thurs. 11/2: My Own Private Idaho   Week 12. "ON THE WARPATH" Tues. 11/7: Bayard Johnson, Damned Right (1994) Screening: The Powwow Highway (1989) Thurs. 11/9: Johnson, cont'd; Powwow Highway   Week 13. ON THE INFO-BAHN Tues. 11/14: Ernest Hebert, Mad Boys (1993) Screening: Highway 61 (1991), plus brief excerpt from Roadside Prophets (1992) Thurs. 11/16: Hebert, cont'd