In this class, each student will be make two seminar presentations, one in the first half of the term and one in the second. The presenter is responsible for about half an hour of class time, usually at the beginning of our meetings, and will likely set the tone and direction for subsequent discussion in our meeting. The presentation should focus on a particular aspect of the reading material assigned for that week. You should, for part of your talk, engage directly with the form or substance of those texts.(Please let me know in advance any specific readings on which you plan to focus, and I will forward this information to the class on the web-page.) You should also establish a clear focus for your presentation -- What main idea do you want your listeners to come away with? -- although in a seminar you should also feel free to range widely and variously through the primary texts. I also encourage you to use Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project as a means of thinking through concepts of history, textuality, spatiality, culture and form that may arise in your readings, although you are not in any way bound to Benjamin's text for your thinking and research.

Within a week after your presentation, please hand in to me a 500-word report, which can consist of some of the text from your presentation, or of your reactions to a particular issue that arose during your talk. This report can also consist of an investigation of a specific argument or a brief close reading of a particular text, or a definition of a particular theme or form pertinent to your presentation. Make sure that you present your material in a focused, critical manner. Please follow the current MLA guidelines on format. I will comment on your written work and on your presentation, and return this report to you, marked, within a week of its submission.

Think carefully about the format your presentation can take. What formats are most appropriate to the material, and to the kind of reading you want to offer? Please feel free to experiment with presentation format. Can you incorporate performance into your work? What kinds of critical practices do you want to demonstrate?