HNRS 190:
Diving into the Wake
#44796
2:30- 4:30PM T
Professor
Katie Conrad (202
Nunemaker, office hours 1-2 Tuesdays and by
appointment Thursdays)
James Joyce's Finnegans
Wake is perhaps the least-read best-known works of English literature.
Dismissed by some as a complex joke, Joyce nonetheless spent a decade and a
half working on it, with the assistance of friends such as writer Samuel
Beckett, and worked on it even after his eyesight had almost completely failed.
The book (for to call it a "novel" would be stretching the idea of a
"novel" past its breaking point) contains a bizarre language
comprised of dozens of foreign languages, very few of which are simple English
words. It contains multi-level puns, complex structures, odd punctuation, and
is considered by many, even its fans, to be "unreadable." And we're
going to read it! Actually, over the course of our half-semester, we will
hardly get through more than a handful of pages of it, and those will likely
give you a headache. But in the course of that time, you will be introduced to
James Joyce, to the most challenging book of (post-) Modern literature, and to
an experience of literary interpretation that itself will require a great deal
of creativity on your part. At the very least, you will learn at least one
rousing Irish drinking song.
Course website, with Joycean resource links, at Blackboard, http://courseware.ku.edu/?bbatt=Y
This document at http://people.ku.edu/~kconrad/190f08.html
Requirements:
Class attendance; reading; in-class
presentation on your selections from the Wake;
written interpretation of your selection; group work on symposium project. This course is pass/fail.
Texts:
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
Recommended but not required:
Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake
William York Tindall, A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake
Schedule:
8-26 Introduction.
9-2
·
Read pp. 3-7.
·
Find your name in Finnegans Wake; be prepared to tell us where and how you found it.
(no
presentations)
9-9 No class. Start exploring the Wake.
Pick your readings (1-5 pages each). E-mail me your selected page numbers
by 9-12.
9-16
·
Hayley 612 (Thud!)-614 (Forget!)
·
Breanna 230
·
Mary 196-7
9-23
·
Julia 138
·
Cherae 420-425
·
Mitchell 414 (I apologuise) - 418 (Haru!)
9-30
·
Kate 309
·
Konnel 407-408
·
Derek 219-221
10-7
·
Jonathan 261-263
·
Anastasia 593-5
·
Hahna 126-7
10-14
·
Chris 245-246
work on
symposium project
11-19,