English R1B

Reading and Composition: Hybrid Writing

Other Readings and Media

"Dick, P.K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Equiano, O.: An Interesting Narrative

Grossman, A. Soon I Will Be Invincible

Shelley, M.: Frankenstein

Spiegelman, A.: Maus

Lunsford, A.: Easy Writer

Course Reader "

Description

"An ex-slave, a super-villain, a monster, an android, and a Jewish mouse are among the starring figures in the books we�ll be reading. Their experiences are vastly different, but what they share is a particular response to their exclusion from the majority: all of them form hybrid identities to bridge the gap. Taken together, their stories call attention to how categories of �human� and �inhuman� get constructed, and what coping strategies are left to those who wind up on the wrong side of that divide.



Hybridity is the method as well as the theme of this course. Just as the figures in these texts build imperfect, hybrid identities to make themselves legible to the world, we will treat writing as a Frankensteinian project: putting things back together once we�ve taken them apart, and building out of all those pieces (the leftover ones that look like they don�t belong anywhere) some coherent whole.



Writing Requirements: three essays, substantial revisions, research presentations, peer-review workshops "