English 111, Section 002: Introduction to Prose Non-Fiction

Bearing Witness: The Art of Documentary

Lectures: MW 14:00-14:50 in Henn 202

Prof. Kevin McNeilly
Office: Buchanan Tower 401, phone 604.822.4466
Office Hours, Fall 2005: Mondays and Fridays, 10:00 to 11:00

Discussion Groups, F 14:00-14:50
L06 -- Buch D225
TA: Sean Somers, e-mail: thessaly@uniserve.com
L07 -- Angus 210
TA: Travis Mason, e-mail: tvmason@interchange.ubc.ca
L08 -- Henn 304
TA: Ahmad Niknam, e-mail: ahmadniknam@yahoo.com
L09 -- Angus 309
TA: Jennifer Brown, e-mail: saintjennifer@hotmail.com
L10 -- Angus 421
TA: Greg Morgan, e-mail: gmmorgan@interchange.ubc.ca

Course Description


In this course, we will examine the basic concepts behind and writing practices of literary non-fiction, focusing in particular on the documentary as a writing form. We will deal with ideas of the human subject and of the depiction of and address to others (and the creation of various kinds of community), with the complex relationships between art and fact, and with the interconnections of the visual and spoken or written language. We will also investigate the intersections of film and photography with text. Questions of representation and self-fashioning will form a crucial part of our investigation of the literary work.

Required Texts

Recommended Texts

Assignments

Lecture Schedule
Lectures are Mondays and Wednesdays at 14:00 in Henn 202.
Please note that I cannot affirm the accuracy or viability of the external material linked to this webpage; these links are provided solely as supplemental information to our class discussions.
Wednesday September 7 Introductory: Documentary Problems, Bearing Witness
Listening to Glenn Gould's "The Idea of North"
Click here for an excerpt, in real audio, from the beginning of Gould's radio documentary, along with other examples of his documentary and radio art.
Click here for "The Inner Eye" from the Glenn Gould Archive at the National Library of Canada site.
Friday September 9
Introductions. What is a documentary?
Monday September 12
Dorothy Livesay, "The Documentary Poem: A Canadian Genre" [Custom Course Materials]
Click here for a brief biography of Dorothy Livesay.
Click here for another brief biography of Livesay.
Click here for the entry on Livesay from The Literary Encyclopedia.
Click here for An Interview with Dorothy Livesay.
Click here for "DOROTHY LIVESAY: CANADIAN CREATOR OF LITERARY CULTURE 1909-1996" by Phillip Hewett.
Click here for an excellent bibliography of work by and about Livesay.
Wednesday September 14
Walter Pater, "Leonardo da Vinci"; W. B. Yeats and Walter Pater, "La Gioconda" [Custom Course Materials]
Click here for an e-text version of Pater's essay.
Click here for an overview of the work of Walter Pater.
Click here for other selections from The Renaissance.
Click here for another brief overview of Pater's career.
Click here for the entry on Pater from The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism.
Click here for a web guide to Walter Pater from .
Click here for another bried overview of Pater's work.
Click here for the entry on Pater from The Literary Encyclopedia.
Click here for a page on Giorgio vasari's Lives of the Artists, a text to which Pater refers at the beginning of his essay.
Click here for selections from the text of vasari's Lives of the Artists.
Click here for the e-text of the collection of critical essays Pater in the 1990s, edited by Laurel Brake and Ian Small.
Friday September 16
Perceptions, Impressions, Histories, Writing
Monday September 19
Richard Dyer, "Introduction," from Heavenly Bodies [Custom Course Materials]
Wednesday September 21
Joel Bakan, "Chapter 1: the Corporation's Rise to Dominance," from The Corporation [Custom Course Materials]
Click here for Joel Bakan's UBC homepage.
Click here for an interview with Joel Bakan.
Click here for the homepage of the film, The Corporation.
Click here for another interview with Joel Bakan.
Click here for a blogger's review of The Corporation.
Click here for "Dealing with Joel Bakan’s Pathological Corporation: A Strategy for Campaigning Human Rights and Environmental NGOs" by Chris Marsden.
Click here for "Giving Corporations the Psychoanalytic Treatment" a film review of The Corporation by A. O. SCOTT from The New York Times.
Friday September 23
Spectacle, Self and Power
Monday September 26
Film and Representation
Excerpts from Morgan Spurlock, dir., Supersize Me
Wednesday September 28
Morgan Spurlock, dir., Supersize Me
Click here for an interview with Morgan Spurlock.
Click here for another interview with Morgan Spurlock.
Click here for still another interview with Morgan Spurlock.
Click here for "McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Flies High at the Box Office, But Crashes on Message" by HEATHER WILLIAMS.
Friday September 30
In Class Essay 1
Click here for the first in-class essay.
Monday October 3
Douglas Coupland, Terry
Click here for Douglas Coupland's homepage.
Click here for the page on Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope from the CBC Archives.
Click here for a 2003 interview with Douglas Coupland.
Click here for a CBC page on Douglas Coupland's Terry.
Click here for a feature on Coupland from a 2004 issue of The Georgia Straight.
Click here for the homepage of the Terry Fox Foundation.
Wednesday October 5
Douglas Coupland, Terry
Friday October 7
Public Figures
Monday October 10
THANKSGIVING -- UNIVERSITY CLOSED
Wednesday October 12
Paulo Freire, Chapter 2, from Pedagogy of the Oppressed [Custom Course Materials]
Click here for the homepage of the Instituto Paulo Freire. (Click the "English" button for the English version.)
Click here for an overview of Freire's work.
Click here for Freire Online: A Journal of the Paulo Freire Institute/UCLA.
Click here for an electronic version of Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Click here for a 1990 interview with Paulo Freire.
Friday October 14
Critical Views
Monday October 17
Seamus Heaney, "Mossbawn" [Custom Course Materials]
Click here for a page on Seamus Heaney from the Internet Poetry Archive.
Click here for an official page on Seamus Heaney's 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Click here for an overview of Heaney's writing career.
Click here for "The Seamus Heaney Portal."
Click here for excerpts from interviews given by Heaney for the BBC.
Click here for the page on Heaney at the Academy of American Poets.
Click here for an interview with Heaney by Karl Miller from Between the Lines.
Wednesday October 19
Karen Blixen, Out of Africa
Click here for the "Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen Information Site."
Click here for an overview of Karen Blixen's writing career.
Click here for a *.pdf version of Isak Dinesen's interview with The Paris Review in 1956.
Click here for "Isak Dinesen in America" by Sara Stambaugh.
Friday October 21
Autobiography = Self Life Writing
Monday October 24
Karen Blixen, Out of Africa
Click here for
Wednesday October 26
Karen Blixen, Out of Africa
Friday October 28
In-Class Essay 2
Click here for the second in-class essay.
Monday October 31
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, "Chapter 1: The Language of African Literature," from Decolonising the Mind [Custom Course Materials]
Wednesday November 2
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Friday November 4
Documenting Exile and Identity
Monday November 7
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Wednesday November 9
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Friday November 11
REMEMBRANCE DAY -- UNIVERSITY CLOSED
Monday November 14
James Agee / Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Click here for "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Agee and Evans' Great Experiment" by Suzanne A. Austgen, from The Hanover Historical Review, an undergraduate journal.
Click here for "Walker Evans Revolutionizes Documentary Photography," a website by Landon Nordeman.
Click here for a summary of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men from Ralph magazine.
Click here for a brief recommendation of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by former US president Jimmy Carter.
Wednesday November 16
James Agee / Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Friday November 18
The Politics of Hope
Monday November 21
James Agee / Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Wednesday November 23
James Agee / Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Friday November 25
Seeing and Reading Differently
Monday November 28
Take-Home Essay due in class. (Please note the change in date from Friday.)
Click here for the topic sheet for the take-home essay.
Roland Barthes, from Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard [Custom Course Materials]
Wednesday November 30
Review
Friday December 2
Review
Click here for the outline for the final exam.