English 190

Research Seminar: The Rejection of Closure: Slow Readings

Book List

Armantrout, R.: Versed; Clark, T. J.: The Sight of Death; Mackey, N.: Splay Anthem; Middleton, P.: Distant Reading: Performance, Readership, and Consumption in Contemporary Poetry; Mullen, H.: Sleeping with the Dictionary; Spahr, J.: Well Then There Now; Spicer, J.: My Vocabulary Did This to Me; Watten, B.: The Constructivist Moment

Description

This is a seminar in the poetics of reading. Over the course of the semester, students will undertake prolonged, exploratory, multi-contextual readings of a selection of recent and contemporary “difficult” poems. Works by Larry Eigner, Rae Armantrout, Jack Spicer, Harryette Mullen, Robert Grenier, Barrett Watten, Juliana Spahr, and Nathaniel Mackey are among those that will be considered. Such works will be read against the backdrop of their historical moment and contextual purport and in conjunction with assigned critical texts, but students will be expected to conduct their own research using primary and secondary sources in the process of coming to relevant, meaningful readings of the poems. Students will be asked to maintain a reading journal and to write several critical papers—some written individually, others written collaboratively.

Please read the paragraph on page 2 of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in, or wait-listing for, this course.

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