AP-EN+4050+syllabus


 * YORK UNIVERSITY**
 * Faculty of Liberal Arts and Profession Studies**
 * Department of English**


 * The Arts of Memory**
 * AP/EN 4050 6.0 2012/13**


 * Professor Julia Creet**
 * Seminar room: Ross S125**
 * Seminar Time: Thursday 4:00-7:00**
 * Website: http://artsofmemory.wikispaces.com/**


 * Course Description:**

Thematically organized around studies in memory, this course will traverse literature, philosophy, architecture, visual arts and film in an effort to understand the interrelatedness of all the arts with respect to one of the most complicated domains of human thought. Our current intellectual and artistic preoccupation with memory is an inheritance of the 20th century, a century which began with a theory of the self built on memory (psychoanalysis), fell into two world-wars and the inevitable sequences of forgetting and remembering that followed, and then saw the development of radically new and sophisticated physical and electronic archives, which threaten, so theory would have it, to replace human memory altogether. We waver between Plato’s ancient concern that writing is a poor substitute for living memory, a form of “hypomnesis,” a theme Jacques Derrida will reanimate, and the “hypermnesis” characteristic of our obsessive collecting and memorial practices of the late twentieth century.

This course is a seminar in which students will be asked to take an active role in leading discussions. Occasionally, the class will be held off campus at alternative times so that the seminar may, as a group, attend cultural events relevant to the course and its themes. The required readings are central to the course and all students must complete the assigned readings before the seminar meets.

Three 500-word response papers (30%): Sept. 27, Oct 25, Nov 22. In-class seminar (15%): various dates 2000-word seminar paper, due two weeks after the seminar(15%): various dates research paper proposal (10%): Feb 7 3500-word research paper (30%): Mar 29
 * Requirements:**

Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and After (Yale); Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude (Penguin); Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family (Vintage); W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (Modern Library); Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (Vintage). Selected essays and short works will be available on the course website.
 * Reading List:**

N.B. Students who enrol in this course must be available to attend at least four reasonably-priced productions and galleries in downtown Toronto, scheduled as conveniently as possible.

Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time. Accordingly, assignments for this course must be received on the due date specified for the assignment. Assignments are to be handed in during the seminar meeting time.
 * Assignment Submission:**

Assignments received later than the due date will be penalized one-half letter grade (1 grade point) per day that assignment is late. Exceptions to the lateness penalty for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., may be entertained by the Course Instructor but will require supporting documentation (e.g., a doctor’s letter).
 * Lateness Penalty:**

**Fall Term: 2011**

 * Sept. 6** Introduction:


 * Sept. 13**
 * Required Readings**

Why Memory Studies now? Astril Erll, [|Traumatic pasts, literary afterlives, and transcultural memory: new directions of literary and media memory studies] Journal of Aesthetics and Culture (Vol 3 (2011)

Andreas Huyssen, “Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia,” //Public Culture// 12.1 (Winter 2000): 21-38 http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/journals/public_culture/v012/12.1huyssen.html

Pierre Nora "Reasons for the current upsurge in memory" http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2002-04-19-nora-en.html

Steffi Hobuß [|Aspects of memory acts: transnational cultural memory and ethics]Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol 3 (2011)
 * Recommended Reading**

**Models of Memory**
Plato, //Phaedrus//. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html (particularly the last third or so)
 * Sept. 20**
 * Required Readings**

Frances Yates, //The Art of Memory// (Chicago, 1966) Chapter 1 and 2. Handout.

[|**http://studyplace.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/w/images/9/9c/Yates-1966-Art-of-Memory-excerpt.pdf**] (Frances Yates, //The Art of Memory - Chapters 1 - 4//)

Tomas Mazur, “Value of Memory—Memory of Value: A Mnemonic Interpretation of Socrates’ Ethical Intellectualism.” Julia Creet and Andreas Kitzman, eds. Memory and Migration, UTP. 2011. 235-248.
 * Recommended Reading**


 * Sept. 27**
 * Required Readings**

St. Augustine, //Confessions//: Book 10, Chapters VIII-XXVI http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confess.html
 * First response paper due: 500 words (see guidelines on "response papers" wiki page)**

Tell, David. “Beyond Mnemotechnics: Confession and Memory in Augustine.” //Philosophy and Rhetoric// 39.3 (2006): 233-253. http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/15272079/v39i0003/233_bmcamia.xml

Mani Rao//, "//Decoding Augustine via Saussure." //In-Between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism// 15.2 (Sept 2006): 131-138.
 * Recommended Reading**s

Embodied Memory

 * Oct. 4**
 * Memorization exercise: choose any short prose passage or poem and memorize it. Recite to class.**

Sigmund Freud, [|“A Note upon the ‘The Mystic Writing Pad.’ //General Psychological Theory//, Chapter XIII, 1925.]

Alison Landsberg, [|Prosthetic Memory: " Total Recall and Blade Runner] [|."][|//Body & Society// (November 1995). 1 (3-4): 175-189]

“Memento Mori” (short story)/ Memento (film): Class members will be responsible for viewing this film prior to class meeting time http://www.alluc.org/movies/watch-memento-2000-online/125416.html http://www.impulsenine.com/homepage/pages/shortstories/memento_mori.htm [|William Little, "Surviving Memento." //Narrative// 13.1 (January 2005): 67-83]
 * Oct. 11**

Seminar 1 (2 presenters) 15 minutes of prepared material; please consult with Prof. Creet about the topic Good guidelines for seminar presentations can be found at: http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a811/a811-01.htm http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/tutsem.html Seminar 2 (2 presenters) =**Genealogical Memory**=

Please arrive by 7:15. Doors open at 7:30 Follow the link below for directions. http://www.tarragontheatre.com/contact/getting-here.php
 * Oct. 18**
 * Class will meet at Tarragon Theatre ** for "No Great Mischief"

If you haven't paid me yet, please bring $22.50 with you for the ticket or send me an email transfer for that amount.

Read beforehand: Cynthia Sugar, "[|Repetition with a Difference: The Paradox of Origins in Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief]" SCL 33.2 (2008): 133-150.


 * Oct. 25**
 * Second Response paper due**

[|**Sigrid Weigel**, Genealogy: On the iconography and rhetorics of an epistemological topos]

[|Catherine Nash, "Genealogical Identities**."** //Society and Space// 2002 (20): 27-52.]


 * Nov. 1** **Reading Week: no class**

Michael Ondaatje, //Running in the Family// Seminar 2 (2 presenters)
 * Nov. 8**

Paul Auster, //The Invention of Solitude// Seminar 3 (2 presenters)
 * Nov. 15**

=Personal and Public Memory=
 * Nov. 22**
 * Third Response Paper due**

Charlotte Delbo, //Auschwitz and After//, “None of Us will Return”, “Useless Knowledge”

Carrol Clarkson, “Embodying ‘you’: Levinas and a question of the second person.” Journal of Literary Semantics 34.2 (2005): 95-105.



Michael Rothberg, [|“Between Auschwitz and Algeria: Multidirectional Memory and the Counterpublic Witness”] //Critical Inquiry// 33. 1 (Autumn 2006): 158-184 Daniel Levy, “Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory.” //European Journal of Social Theory February// 2002 5: 87-106. Seminar 4 (2 presenters)
 * Nov. 29**