Tuesday, November 29, 2005

For Thursday

Remember, we'll be discussing Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto Thursday. It is incredibly dense and difficult in some ways, a return to the kinds of poetic philosophical stuff we read with Plato and Nietzsche and Dostoievski. I recommend you read it for its imagery, for its language, the way you read Ginsberg and Burroughs. Read sections out loud to get a taste for the rhythm of the piece. Rather than trying to puzzle through all of the arguments, note the images that it inspires in your minds and think about the things those images share and conflict with other about.

Also, you'll be handing in copies of the latest paper for your peer editing groups. And, wonder of wonders, you'll be getting back your papers from me at long last, too.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

SCUM!

Has everybody found SCUM online and read it in preparation for tomorrow's discussion? Click here for the text.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

How Are Things?

Hello, everybody. Just checking in with you all. I hear there were more people at the Workshop this time. How'd it go? How are your new papers shaping up? How are you feeling about the class now that we're approaching mid-term? Have you processed the feedback you received on your graded papers yet? Comments? Questions? Also: Remember that we're screening a movie this Thursday, so it's very important that everybody arrive on time!

Friday, September 30, 2005

Info on the Presidio Workshop Monday

Everybody! Remember that there is a Workshop Monday to help you come up with the thesis and opposition for your next graded assignment. I strongly recommend everybody take advantage of this opportunity. This is for everybody, not just students who reside in the Presidio. It will be a really hands-on way of sharpening the ideas you started coming up with in class Thursday. Here's the basic information:

Presidio Thesis Workshop

Monday, October 3rd

8:00 PM

852C MacArthur Ave at the apartment of Bobby Ives

Here are the directions to get you to the workshop:

Enter the Presidio by the Lombard Gate entrance.
Take a right on Presidio Blvd.
Take a left on MacArthur, which forks agt Fernandez. Stay on MacArthur and Bobby's will be the second building on the right.

If you get lost, Bobby's number is 561-3931.

I'll be sending out a mass e-mail reminder tomorrow as well.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

For Tomorrow

We're devoting the first hour or so of class tomorrow to peer editing. I'll talk to you a little bit about what my expectations are and about how you can get the most out of the process. After our break we'll turn to the Nietzchse. Probably we won't get past Ecce Homo's Preface and the first section, "Why I Am So Wise" in our discussion. Tomorrow I'm handing in the final course roster so it is crucial that everybody attend tomorrow -- or that you contact me tonight if you cannot make it for some reason -- otherwise I might accidentally drop you from my latest list. Nice to see people starting to play around with the blog a bit. Jump right in, everybody. And I'll see you all tomorrow afternoon.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Syllabus

English Comp A
Ranting, Raving, Writing

Fall 2005

Thursdays, 1.00-3.45, Conference Room
Instructor: Dale Carrico, dalec@berkeley.edu
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment

Course Description

This is a course in argumentative reading and writing. But the works we will be reading together are anything but exemplary argumentative texts. Our texts rant and rave, they are brimming with rage, dripping with corrosive humor, suffused with ecstasies. In ranting and raving arguments are pushed into a kind of crisis, and in them rhetoric becomes a kind of poetry.

What does it tell us about argument in general to observe it in extremis like this? How can we read transcendent texts critically, in ways that clarify their stakes without dismissing their force, and enable us to communicate intelligibly to others the reactions they inspire in us and the meanings we find in them?

Sept 1 Introduction
Discussion of “Four Habits of Argumentative Writing”
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~dalec/fourhabits.html

Sept 8 Discussion of Anonymous, “Fuck the South”
http://www.fuckthesouth.com/
2-3pp. Diagnostic Essay due.

Sept 15 Discussion of Plato, Symposium
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/plato_symposium01.htm
Draft for paper two due. 3-4pp.

Sept 22 Discussion of Friedrich Nietzsche, “Ecce Homo” (excerpts)
http://users.compaqnet.be/cn127103/Nietzsche_ecce_homo/
Peer editing paper two.

Sept 29 Discussion of Nietzsche, “Ecce Homo” (continued)
Second paper due. 3-4pp.

Oct 6 Fiodr Dostoievski, “Notes From the Underground” (excerpt)
http://eserver.org/books/dostoevsky-underground/
Draft for paper three due. 3-4pp.

Oct 13 Discussion of Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”
http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/ginsberg.html#howl
Peer editing paper three.

Oct 20 Discussion of William Burroughs, “Immortality”
http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/immortality.html
Third paper due. 3-4pp.

Oct 27 Screening of Network. Dir. Sidney Lumet.

Nov 3 Discussion of the film, Network.
Draft for paper four due. 4-5pp.

Nov 10 Discussion of Dianna Dimassa, “Hothead Paisan”
Peer editing paper four.

Nov 17 Discussion of Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto
http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm
Fourth paper due. 4-5pp.

Nov 24-25 Thanksgiving Holiday

Dec 1 Discussion of Donna Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
Draft for final paper due. 5-6pp.

Dec 8 Discussion of the Cyborg Manifesto (continued)
Peer editing final papers.

Dec 15 Concluding Remarks.
Final Paper due. 5-6pp.