[Fall 2003] CLEN W4540 Space, Place & Travel in Postmodern Literature
Prof. Ursula Heise
Texts
Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps, University of Minnesota Press Gabriel García Márquez, 100 Years of Solitude, Harper Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Coffee House Press Don DeLillo, White Noise, Penguin Christa Wolf, Accident: A Day's News, University of Chicago Press Raymond Williams, The Country and the City, Oxford University Press Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark, Picador Short stories and theoretical essays are xeroxed in a course reader.
Description This class will focus on the imagination of place and travel in narrative and some poetic texts from the 1960s to the present, and will explore theoretical approaches to space and place in literary/cultural criticism, critical geography, ecocriticism, anthropology and media theory. Readings of literary texts that define new perspectives on natural, suburban, urban and cyber-environments in the present and in imaginary futures will include novels, short stories and poems by Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami, Gary Snyder, John Cage, Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, Karen Tei Yamashita, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler and William Gibson. Theoretical readings will include Raymond Williams, Fredric Jameson, David Harvey, Doreen Massey, Mike Davis, James Clifford, and others. How do modernization, urbanization and technological innovation change the perception and experience of space? How do humans alter their environments, and how are they themselves transformed by these changes? How does the human body adjust to environmental change? Is there still such a thing as a "natural" environment, and how could it be defined? How does the experience of virtual space relate to that of real places? How are mobility, migration, tourism and travel defined in relation to these spaces? These are some of the questions the class will address.
Requirements 1. Regular attendance at class Weeks. If you miss more than three classes, your grade will be affected (1/3 downgrade for each additional class missed). 2. Writing assignments: — Undergraduates: six short papers (1-2 pages) on the reading assignments. You can choose which readings you'd like to write about, but your papers have to be turned in before we discuss the texts you write about in class, and three of them have to be submitted prior to October 16. At least one of your papers must be on a theoretical text or issue. These short papers are designed to help you engage with the texts we'll discuss in class, so you have to have them ready by the beginning of class (assignments can't be turned in late). The assignments will count equally toward your final grade. — Graduates: Option 1: three papers, each approximately 5 pages in length, on the assigned class readings. You can choose which readings you'd like to write on, and if you'd like to, you can consult with me on viable topics. The paper should be completed before the reading you explore is discussed in class. Two of your papers must be submitted by October 30. Each of the three papers will count equally toward the final grade. Option 2: A 15-page research paper, due at the end of the semester.
SYLLABUS
Week 1:	Introduction: Globalization, Modernism, and Deterritorialization [Jameson, "Postmodernism"]
Week 2:	Carpentier, The Lost Steps Chs. 1-3 Clifford, "Traveling Cultures"
Week 3:	Carpentier, The Lost Steps Chs. 4-6
Week 4:	Modernization & the Concept of "Disembedding" García Márquez, 100 Years Giddens, Consequences 1-54
Week 5:	Globalization & the Concept of "Deterritorialization" García Márquez, 100 Years Tomlinson, Ch. 5
Week 6:	Migration & Deterritorialization Yamashita, Arc of the Rainforest
Week 7:	Risk & Deterritorialization Wolf, Accident
Week 8:	Environmentalism & the Concept of "(Re-)Inhabitation" Snyder, "New York Bedrock," "Los Angeles Basin," "Place, Region & Commons," "Reinhabitation" Williams, "Yellowstone" Berry selections Le Guin, "Vaster than Empires" Cage, "Where Are We Eating?"
Week 9:	Pastoral: Wilderness, Country, City Williams, Country & City Harvey, "From Space to Place" Massey, "Power-Geometry"
Week 10:	The Global City Butler, "Speech Sounds" Davis, City of Quartz Chs. 1 & 3 Davis, Ecology of Fear Chs. 1 & 6 Sassen, from Global City
Week 11:	Space, Place & Media DeLillo, White Noise Meyrowitz, "The Generalized Elsewhere"
Week 12:	Cyberspace & Virtual Travel Murakami, "TV People" Gibson, "Burning Chrome"
Week 13:	Cyberspace & Real Space Powers, Plowing the Dark
Week 14:	Conclusion Powers, Plowing the Dark ctd.
Sources
— Berry, Wendell. "Farming and the Global Economy." Another Turn of the Crank. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995. 1-7. — Berry, Wendell. "The Regional Motive." A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. 63-70. — Butler, Octavia E. "Speech Sounds." 1983. — Cage, John. "Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating?" Empty Words: Writings '73-78. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1981. 79-97. — Clifford, James. "Traveling Cultures." Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. 17-46. — Gibson, William. "Burning Chrome." Burning Chrome. New York: Ace, 1987. 168-91. — Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. — Harvey, David. "From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflections on the Condition of Postmodernity." Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Eds. Jon Bird et al. London: Routledge, 1993. 3-29. — Jameson, Fredric. "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991. 1-54. — Le Guin, Ursula K. "Vaster than Empires and More Slow." Buffalo Girls and Other Animal Presences. New York: Plume, 1988. 92-128. — Massey, Doreen. "Power-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place." Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Eds. Jon Bird et al. London: Routledge, 1993. 59-69. — Meyrowitz, Joshua. "The Generalized Elsewhere." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6.3 (1989): 326-34. — Murakami, Haruki. "TV People." Trans. Alfred Birnbaum. The Elephant Vanishes. New York: Vintage, 1993. 195-216. — Sassen, Saskia. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. 2nd edn. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. — Snyder, Gary. Mountains and Rivers Without End. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996. [poems] — Snyder, Gary. "Reinhabitation." A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995. 183-91. — Snyder, Gary. "The Place, the Region, and the Commons." The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point, 1990. 25-47. — Tomlinson, John. Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. — Williams, Terry Tempest. "Yellowstone: The Erotics of Place." An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field. New York: Pantheon, 1994. 81-87.