ENG 350. Senior Seminar. “Commonplacing & Canonbusting”
August 31: The Canon vs. our canon
BLESS or BLAST!
Vorticism and Blast Magazine
Typography and Fonts in Use (here)
Tate Britan: Blast! and the radical Vorticist Manifesto (here)
Typeroom: How Blast Changed Literature Forever (here)
Trade Contact Info / Syllabus Review
ENG 350 Syllabus (Word) (PDF)
Letter to ENG 350 Students (here)
Commonplace Book Assignment (here)
Classroom Activity: Rare books versus cheap books
HW: 1. Set up your https://www.dropbox.cuny.edu account (downloading the app if you wish) by accepting my folder invitation. I will send the invitation to the email address you provided in class. All coursework will be turned in there as a PDF or JPG.
2. Read the “Letter to ENG 350 Students.” Write your Letter to the Professor (response and revision) and submit as a PDF in Dropbox.
3. Read through the syllabus carefully on your own. Review your notes from class and try to answer some of the questions from the board regarding the canon and classics.
4. Read through the Commonplace Book Assignment I handed out (also linked above). Thoughtfully procure a commonplace book (notebook) that you love and will use throughout the semester. Write your first entry and bring it to class every week.
5. Write your first commonplace book entry: one page of things to BLAST and one page of things to BLESS. Be thoughtful about your handwriting/typography, size, layout, etc.
September 7: Tastemakers and Criticism
Read up more on BLAST! and Vorticism (here) and (here)
Share Commonplace Books and entries.
Group Activity: Practical Criticism Experiment
What is a classic? Who decides? .
*I.A. Richards, Practical Criticism 1 and 2
John Crowe Ransom, Criticism, Inc.
Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (here); “The Critic as Artist” (excerpts here and full play here)
Walter Pater, from Studies in the History of the Renaissance (passages here and fuller text here)
HW: (1) Make sure your Dropbox has your letter to me saved as a PDF. (2) Review one of the articles below on Rovee, Buurma/Heffernan, Yood, and Moten for class discussion. (3) Sign up for a free NYTimes account below with your Lehman account and skim some of the articles below.
September 14: Commons, Crowdsourcing & The Undercommons
Class Activity: Commons & Crowdsourcing
Chris Rovee, “Reading Keats Together: Cleanth Brooks and the Collegiate Public.” Pay attention to Part II “On a Level” especially.
Rachel Buurma and Laura Heffernan, “The Classroom in the Canon: T. S. Eliot’s Modern English Literature Extension Course for Working People and The Sacred Wood”
Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study. Read Chapter 2, “The University and the Undercommons” and Halberstam’s intro.
Eugenia Zuroski, #BIPOC18 and the Undercommons of Enlighenment and The Bigger 6 Collective (here)
Introduction to Belle da Costa Greene
HW: (1) Review our discussion above on Rovee, Buurma/Heffernan, Yood, and Moten. Copy key passages and write down your reflections in your commonplace book. (2) Sign up for your free New York Times account (here). Read the articles and links about Belle da Costa Greene carefully at home before the trip. Commonplace or “newspaper clip” passages that stand out to you. (3) Read Chapters 1-18 of The Personal Librarian. (4) Remember that class meets in midtown next week at The Morgan Library (35th and Madison Ave.)
September 21: Belle da Costa Greene | Morgan Library Trip
Class meets at The Morgan Library, 225 Madison Ave (Btwn 36th and 37th Sts.) at 2:45 p.m. See you in the lobby!
The Personal Librarian (Part 1) and (Part 2)
Photos from our field trip & the library materials (here)
Sign up for your free New York Times account (here)
“The Morgan Library and Miss Greene” NYT feature (here)
Library of Congress feature (here)
NYT obituary of Belle da Costa Greene (here)
Explore The Belle da Costa Greene Professional Papers at the Morgan LIbrary
Earliest known photograph at Amherst (here)
Codeswitch podcast with the authors of The Personal Librarian (here)
HW: (1) Compose you first Field Report (assignment here). You have 2 weeks to complete this. I have linked photos from our trip above. (2) Reflect and respond to both the author’s notes at the end of Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray’s The Personal Librarian in your commonplace book. (3) Readings for next weeks’s class: Choose one of the 3 articles linked below (Hess, Cheng, or Jones) to read carefully and focus on for next week’s Zoom discussion.
September 28: Commonplacing! Zoom lecture & discussion
(Class will meet online via Zoom at the link here)
Morgan Library Field Report Assignment (here)
Photos from the Morgan Library including high res images of the Belle Greene materials (here)
Articles:
Jillian Hess, “Social Commonplacing,” from How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information (here)
Mai-lin Cheng, “Domestic Extracts” (here)
Shelley AJ Jones, “Digital Experiments in Romantic-Era Commonplacing.” Any missing images from her article can be found here.
Commonplace Book Assignment (here)
K-SAA Digital Commonplacing Website (here)
HW: 1. Explore the Commonplacing websites I introduced in class, thinking about what you’ll contribute online to the global commonplace book at the end of term. 2. Add some apparatus of information organization systems to your own commonplace book (whether an index or a TOC). Gussy up your Commonplace Book. 3. Take photos of your Commonplace Book and update me on what you’ve created by uploading photos or screenshots to Dropbox. 4. Complete and hand in your Field Report.
October 5: No regular Class
Finish up and hand in your Morgan Library Field Report (here) as a PDF via Dropbox.
HW: Make sure you are all caught up in Commonplace entries and bring your Commonplace Book to next Thursday’s class.
October 12: Building Out & EXCHANGING your commonplace book | Class meets at LEHMAN in CARMAN 301
Class Activity: Intro: Toni Morrison, “Cinderella’s Stepsisters”
Coat of Arms & Ex Libris | Palafoxiana Photos
Wax-sealing
Examples of Cross-writing
Collaborative Commonplacing
Introduction to Michael Field
Michael Field background (here)
“A Girl” (here)
Further reading: 2 books linked at the bottom of the site here
HW: Read excerpts from Deidre Lynch’s Loving Literature and the linked articles below about the Pforzheimer Collection. Next week, I will give you time to explore the Diaries of Michael Field.
October 19: curation and libraries, Collecting & Museums | Class at Lehman
Readings:
Deidre Lynch, from Loving Literature (here)
Optional: Deidre Lynch, “Paper Slips: Album, Archiving, Accident” (here)
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Introduction:
NYT Feature: “His name was Bélizaire”
Dadism and The Futurist Manifesto
Class Lecture:
Final Paper Assignment will be distributed
Housekeeping: What your Dropbox should look like (here)
Presentation (here) and Final Paper Assignment (here)
Group Activity:
In a small group, work with one high resolution digital text of your choice and select a passage the stands out to discuss and analyze. Be ready to share out for the end of class.
Historical Commonplace Books:
1805 Commonplace Book (here) - 1
1834 Commonplace Book (here) - 2
1834 Mary Burdoch Bland Liverpool Commonplace Book (here) - 3
1551 Medical Commonplace book (here) - 4
1892 American political commonplace book (here) - 5
1723 Commonplace book (here) - 6
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 1) - 7
Felicia Hemans’ Commonplace Book (Part 2)
HW: (1) Commonplace 2 passages from any of the materials from the Group Activity today. (2) Put in 2 hours of reading/researching for your presentation topic. (3) Complete your first Field Report if you haven’t already. (4) Update and organize your Dropbox folder for grading. Reminder: Our next 2 weeks of class meet at the NYU & NYPL libraries (Washington Sq Park and Bryant Park, respectively)
OCTober 26: Trip to NYU Fales Collection
Class meets under Washington Square Arch at 2:45 p.m. We will walk over to Bobst Library together and check in with security for our 3pm session. Bring your ID!
Meeting Address: Washington Square North (maps)
High-res photos of materials from our field trip are linked in this folder
Information about NYU’s Fales Library of English and American Literature (here)
Scroll through some of the other archival collections at NYU’s Bobst Library (here)
HW: 1. Field Report (You must complete 2 this semester). 2. Update and organize your Dropbox, renaming files.
November 2: NYPL Pforzheimer Collection Visit | Shelley and his circle
Class meets at the 42nd Street Main Branch Library (behind Bryant Park) on Fifth Avenue. Entrance is on 5th Ave btwn 40-42nd Sts. See you at 2:45 at the main entrance by the lion statues!
You can take the 4/5 to 42nd St Grand Central and walk over, or take the BDF to the Bryant Park station. If you’re the kind of person who runs late, plan to be there by 2:30 pm.
*High-res photos of materials from our NYPL trip are linked here.
About the Pforzheimer Collection (here)
About the NYPL Lions (here)
1986 NYT article, “A Shelley Trove Going to New York Library” (here)
Charles Carter, Celebrating 30 Years of the Pforzheimer Collection AT NYPL (here)
Romantic Interests: ”The Ordinary Women” (here)
Elizabeth Denlinger, “A Black Tulip Comes to the Pforzheimer Collection” (here)
HW: Please bring you commonplace book to class. Update your Dropbox and catch up on any missing work by Nov 9.
November 9: Final Paper prep: Class will take place on campus at Lehman (finally!)
Please bring your commonplace books to class.
Class Activity:
Anatomy of a 5-page paper (handout here)
Thank you notes to librarians & curators
HW: 1. Solidify your paper topic and begin work on your 3-slide presentation. Start outlining your final paper. 2. Catch up on any missing HW and organize your Dropbox. 3. Take a video of leafing through your commonplace book page by page and upload to Dropbox.
November 16: Digital Commonplacing
Class will be held via Zoom at this link! (here)
K-SAA Digital Initiative 2023: A Public Commonplace Book of Romantic Readers (here)
NYTimes, “Create a Digital Commonplace Book” (here)
CUNY Academic Commons (here)
One More Voice: BIPOC Voices in Victorian Studies (here)
COVE editions (here)
commonplacing Michael Field
Introduction to Michael Field
Background (here)
The Diaries of Michael Field:
Our “Commonplacing Michael Field” shared document is here
The Diaries of Michael Field platform (toggle to Volumes 18 or 23)
Michael Field raw image files from Volume 25, The Diaries of Michael Field images, Vol. 25
Full transcription (here)
HW: (1) Prepare your 3-slide presentation. You are assigned to present on Nov 30 or Dec 7. (2) Get working on your final paper.
November 23: No class - happy Thanksgiving!
Prepare your Presentation
November 30: Presentations 1
Mahamad
London
Kristian
Krismely
Priscilla
Rosslinette
Ariel
HW: 1. Continue work on your final paper. 2. Complete any missing Commonplace Book entries. 3. Clean up your Dropbox and fill in any missing work.
December 7: Presentations | last day of class | Conclusions
Alexia
Naylene
Amani
Celine
Destiny
Donald
Grace
Final Paper due Dec 18 as a PDF in your Dropbox.
Housekeeping & Tips:
Reread the assignment itself.
Take 5 minutes to tidy up your Dropbox and relabel your files.
Essay help:
Feel free to meet with me during office hours to talk about your essay topic, paper structure, etc. Don’t be shy!
Anatomy of a Five-Paragraph Essay
The Art of Quoting, from They Say, I Say by Graff and Birkenstein
Integrating Sources & Incorporating Quotes sample
Essay Grading Rubric
(Library Research Guide)