Animated Eyegiene: Remarkable Pilot by Chris Reccardi and Lynne Naylor via BOINGBOING.NET

Camille Rose García's ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Gustavo Arellano's Paean to Taco Bell, in the LA TIMES

Latina Femme Fatale Comic from 1949: Bombshells From South of the Border

More on the Señorita Rio comic story series here.

Epic Politics/Epic Fictions: Homer's ODYSSEY and García Márquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

LATE NOTICE
I am lecturing tonight to a group of graduate students--the lecture is free and open to the public.

Epic Politics/Epic Fictions: Homer's ODYSSEY and García Márquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

Dr. W. A. Nericcio

ENGL 790

MA EXAM PREPARATION CLASS

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

7:00pm-9:40pm in HH-210

SDSU Main Campus

Engl 563, Drugs, Sex, & Rock and Roll | Spring 2010 | SDSU | W. Nericcio | Syllabus

English 549 aka Engl 549, Dystopia, Dystopia! From the Erotic Electric to the Anarchy of Technologies on the Verge | Spring 2010 | W. Nericcio

Syllabus

Here you see before your eyes, and, if you choose to print me out, in your hands, your long-awaited syllabus for our English 549 Dystopia! Dystopia class at SDSU, Spring 2010.

Engl 549: Dystopia, Dystopia! An Online Syllabus and More...
From the Erotic Electric to the Anarchy of Technologies on the Verge
Spring 2010 | W. Nericcio

Thursday, January 21, 2010
The first day of class wherein we discuss the various and sundry elements that go into a study of dystopias and utopias; a friendly period filled with greetings and exchanges and culminating with some quality time spent with the Oxford English Dictionary {SDSU Love Library online access to the OED? Right here!}

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Read to page 85 of Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD--to the end of Chapter 5. As you read, consider the differences between reading Huxley's opus as a Dystopia versus an Utopia

Thursday, January 28, 2010
Continue reading Huxley's novel--to page 145.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Finish Huxley's novel--compare the cultural dynamics of the "World State" with that to be found in the "badlands" of Malpais. In class, think through the figure of blackness and how it figures metaphorically in this dystopic classic.

Thursday, February 4, 2010
Class cancelled; if you have not, use this time to finish your reading of Huxley's novel.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Read to the end of page 104 in George Orwell's 1984--to the end of the first part of the novel; in class we will begin to screen Terry Gilliam's dystopic classic, BRAZIL (1985; director's cut; 142 minutes). Allow a simultaneous cross-pollenization to occur: let Orwell's prose contaminate your cinematic experience; at the same time, allow Gilliam's singular, baroque nightmare to confuse the synaptic processing of Orwell's odyssey.

Thursday, February 11, 2010
Continue your exploration of Orwell's novel--read to page 147, the end of section IV, Part TWO of the novel. We will focus on the novel today, though we may screen 30 or so minutes of Gilliam's film.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Imagination Challenge ONE prompts, NOW AVAILABLE! Read to page 260, the end of section II of part THREE of the novel. We will likely spend much of today finishing BRAZIL. Here's a key scene from the movie:



Thursday, February 18, 2010
Walk into our seminar having finished Orwell's meditation on the future. The bulk of our discussion today will be on 1984, though Gilliam fanatics can break in as well with findings, suggestions, questions and ideas. Gilliam's BRAZIL is NOT a filmed version of 1984 but it may well be the best cinematic exploration of ideas woven through Orwell's landmark piece of fiction.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Read to page 118, the end of chapter 6, in Marge Percy's WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME; how do Percy's visions jive/clash with those we've already sampled with Huxley, Gilliam, and Orwell.

Thursday, February 25, 2010
Continue reading WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME--to page 183, the end of Chapter 9.

Friday, February 26, 2010
Your first essay is DUE, at NOON--Arts and Letters 273.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Our exploration of Percy's dystopia continues--read to p. 295, the end of chapter 15.

Thursday, March 4, 2010
Finish WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME; in-class essay a distinct possibility.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Read to page 153 in Philip K. Dick's outrageous novel, DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP--Ridley Scott used Dick's novel as the basis for BLADERUNNER and while that's important for us to know, the emphasis in class will be on Dick's amazing novel.

Thursday, March 11, 2010
Finish Dick's novel for our class discussion. Dick's twisted vision, a blend of pulp fiction with the tropes of dystopia are quite striking--in class we will want to begin to dissect the inner rhythms of dystopic fiction.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010
From Dick's Sheep we move to JG Ballards' outrageous symphony/cacophony on catastrophe, industrialism, and sexuality: CRASH--read to page 131, the end of chapter 13, in Ballard's novel. WARNING: Ballard's novel is bound to leave some of you outraged--if you are in need of a substitute reading, do let me know asap! My email is memo@sdsu.edu or bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu | double warning--clicking the image to your right will take you to a decidedly NSFW (possibly, not safe for life) site!

Thursday, March 18, 2010
Read to the end of page 181, the end of chapter 19 in Ballard's CRASH.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Finish Ballard's CRASH for today's class.

Thursday, March 25, 2010
FURLOUGH DAY--NO CLASS



Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Spring Break


Thursday, April 1, 2010
Spring Break


Tuesday, April 6, 2010
FURLOUGH DAY--NO CLASS



Thursday, April 8, 2010
Over the holiday, you have taken TEX{T}-MEX with you to get ahead (!!!!)--maybe! Today, it pays off as you enter the room having read the introduction (p.15-30) and the TOUCH OF EVIL CHAPTER (p.39-80). In class, we will screen a section of Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL from 1958; here's a classic interrogation scene from the film:



also note that today, April 8, 2010, you will receive your prompts for your Imagination Challenge #2 Essay Extravaganza. Your prize essays will be due on Monday, April 26, 2010 at 12 noon at my office, Arts and Letters 273.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Continue your reading in TEX{T}-MEX; a bit lighter reading this time, as you are asked to consume the two intersticial chapters, Seductive Hallucination Galleries 1 and 2, p.31 and p.173. In class, we will continue our screening of TOUCH OF EVIL.

Thursday, April 15, 2010
Today we will finish our discussion of TOUCH OF EVIL--recommended reading? The Speedy Gonzales chapter of TEX{T}-MEX, p.111; how do hallucinations of Mexican subjectivity de-stabalize our own cultural anthropological efforts at figuring/figuring out the dystopic contours of the US/MEXICAN border?

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

In class, we will add to our own dystopifying efforts to figure out frontiers/borderlands/policeSTATES by screening the first part of Alfonso Cuarón's CHILDREN OF MEN. OPTIONAL resource reading: Read the chapter on graphic narrative and Frida Kahlo in TEX{T}-MEX, p.191

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Continue screening CHILDREN OF MEN

change-->MONDAY, April 26, 2010

Your prize essays will be due today by 12 noon at my office in Arts and Letters, room 273.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Start your reading of Salvador Plasencia's PEOPLE OF PAPER; however, the bulk of the class will be given over to our discussion of Cuarón's CHILDREN OF MEN

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Brace for a dystopia that moves to the beat of a different drummer--read to page 97, the end of part one of THE PEOPLE OF PAPER by Salvador Plascencia.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Read to page 157 in Plascencia's eclectic micro-epic. Keep a running list of the stylistic effects/tricks he weaves into this stunning first novel.

Thursday, May 6, 2010
Finish THE PEOPLE OF PAPER; course REVIEW...

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Final in-class challenge/exercise...

MLA Award for Latina/o Cultural Studies Announced!

For a list of former recipients, hit this link.

Eva Parker Longoria's Trip to the DNA Parlor

Sex y Corazon @ UCLA!!!

SEX Y CORAZON: QUEER AND FEMINIST THEORY AT THE VANGUARD OF THE NEW CHICANA/O STUDIES

Friday, Feb. 12, 2010
James West Alumni Center Conference Room
325 Westwood Plaza
UCLA campus

PROGRAM/TIMES

In Celebration of The 15th Anniversary/Quinceañera of the UCLA César Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies


On February 12, 2010 the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies will be hosting a one-day symposium that looks back over the last fifteen years of Chicana/o Studies and examines how Chicana/o queer and feminist scholars have changed the field. This historical symposium will gather over twenty-five Chicana and Chicano scholars and practitioners whose work intersects race, class, gender and sexuality paradigms within both traditional and interdisciplinary fields like Anthropology, Art History, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, History, Literary Criticism, Performance Studies, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, Sociology, and Women's Studies.

The speakers represent three distinct generations of feminist and queer scholarship: the Chicana generation of the 1980s that utilized gender standpoint epistemologies to interrogate the patriarchal assumptions and privileges of Chicano subjectivity, the Xicana generation of the late 1990s that examined gender and sexual identity as part of transnational indigenous racial constructions and communities, and the gender-bending post-2000 Chican@ generation that uses the lens of sexuality to further decolonize the brown body and in particular, notions of feminine/masculine, maleness/femaleness within Chicana and Chicano subjectivity.

Structured as 4 “kitchen table” pláticas, or conversations, the symposium speakers will dialogue about how feminist and queer theory changed the field of Chicana and Chicano Studies, and conversely, how the intersection of Chicana/o theory altered feminist and queer studies. Because the symposium will take place near Valentine’s Day, traditionally a day to celebrate love, speakers will also speak to how they practice what Chicana theorist Chela Sandoval calls the “hermeneutics of love” in their work, that is, the speakers will dialogue about how their scholarship and activism utilizes love as a political strategy for social change.

FREE and open to the public.
Parking: Lot 6, $10

English 563 Imagination Challenge Number One | Prompts

Note: hit the gradesheet to your right

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my editorial peculiarities!

english 563 | drugs, sex, and rock & roll

professor william nericcio

spring 2010 sdsu

Imagination Challenge Essay Extravaganza Number ONE

This is your first formal writing assignment

for our English 563 class--don't stress too

much over it! Stress kills provocative

and compelling writing.

DON'T try to guess what I like and spoon-feed

it to me; that's the worst thing you can do.

Read the prompts. Adapt them so that they

fuse with your brilliant imagination and write

about things you love.

That's the only way to become a great writer--

love what you study so much that your prose

carries the influenza of your passion into the

eyes and soul of your reader.

So, here we go.

Your first Imagination Challenge Essay

Extravaganza! Papers, 4-7 pages, due Friday,

February 26, 2009 at 12noon in the box or into my hands

at professor's office, Arts and Letters 273.

You will know you are in the right place if you see

hundreds of things stuck to the door of my office.

NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED; EARLY

PAPERS ARE ADORED AND WORSHIPED (if they

are damn good!).

Any student who wishes to receive a mark of "A+" or

"A" will incorporate research drawn from at least

two (2) scholarly journals (use Love Library's online

links to peruse what's shaking on Project Muse or

JSTOR); additionally, they will type their work,

double-spaced, and NOT use a cartoony, silly font.

They will carefully proofread their essay and they

will ensure that they are not merely regurgitating

inanities that have spilled out the mouth of their

professor. An essay is an independent project born

of curiosity and filled with ideas that are carefully

substantiated by the writer--sort of like a lawyer

building a killer case.

Here are your prompts:

1. Narcotics are the Finest Lovers Department

Compare or contrast the tactics of Thomas de Quincey, Greil Marcus, and Darren Aronofsky when it comes to the depiction of narcotic addiction. Is it possible that such divergent intellects also reveal great similarities when juxtaposed in a critical exercise?

2. Sex is My Drug Department

While Thomas de Quincey, Greil Marcus, and Darren Aronofsky spend a fair amount of time documenting the consequences of narcotic use and abuse, they do not turn a blind eye when it comes to sexuality. Write about the role of sex in the work of at least two of these writers.

3. Freud is in the House

Go to the library and find and read ONE of Freud's famous case histories--some suggestions: the Wolf-Man, Little Hans, Dora, or others. Having filled your head with Freud's irregular, erratic, delicious methodology, do a Freudian analysis of key passages from any of the works we have read/screened thus far this term.

4. Film Theory: Aronofsky and His Ilk

Contrast the representation of addiction found in Requiem for a Dream with that of any other film of your choosing; some suggestions: The Days of Wine and Roses, Trainspotting, or Leaving Las Vegas.

5. Addicts Sans Stereotypes

Write a brief meditation that evaluates the representation of drug use in the work Thomas de Quincey and Nelson Algren. Do they undermine or reinforce stereotypical views of addiction.

6. The Erotics of Pleasure

Find and read essays/chapters on pleasure and pain from the writings of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish; The History of Sexuality; Power/Knowledge); instead of focusing on drugs as pathological, consider pursuing an essay, a Foucauldian exercise, wherein you explore the complicated dynamics of substance use with an emphasis on pleasure.

7. You are the Professor!

Design your own thesis based on your readings/screenings the first few weeks of our class--you must submit your proposal for this paper topic to me in class, printed, by Tuesday, Februraryy 23, 2010 for greenlighting/editing.

New Orson Welles and Lupe Velez Images: Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America

Just time this morning for a few new pictures from the 'net and one new auction featuring a 50th anniversary poster for Orson Welles's CITIZEN KANE.