OCR Document

Contemporary British Novel

English 3621-001; CRN 30973 White 120; TR 1.00-2.15

Prof. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon Dept of English SAC 466; Phone/ Voice-mail 94655* Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2.30-3.30 pm and by appt.

Home Phone/ Voice-mail 215-592-8102. (*It's best to call me at home.)

E-mail: Hugh.Ormsby-Lennon@villanova.edu (use this rather than Voicemail

Home fax: 215-238-1187 (Alert me first, please.)

Home Page: url: http//www60.homepage,villanova.edu/ My home page is most easily accessible :trom "My Classroom," the photo site that we all share for English 2700-003. My home page is also accessible via the Villanova Faculty Directory on WWW. My home page will have a link to this syllabus, continually updated, and to other important information concerning this class. Final: Tuesday May 4, 1.30-4.00, White 120

Theme: "What contemporary British people are reading"

Goals and Objectives: Students will become better readers of novels and will improve their writing skills. In response to sets of questions distributed weekly they will also improve their performance as speakers.

Reading List (in order)

Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary (Penguin

Nick Hornby High Fidelity (Penguin)

David Lodge, Small World (Penguin)

William Trevor, "Reading Turgeniev" and "My House in Umbria" in Two Lives (Penguin) Ian McEwan, Enduring Love (Random House)

Helen Zahavi Dirty Weekend (Cleis)

Ian McEwan, The Comfort of Strangers (Random House)

Martin Amis, Dead Babies (Random House)

John Buchan, The Thirty Nine Steps (penguin)

David Lodge, The Art of Fiction (Penguin) AF

Teaching Method

Informal lecture with as much discussion as possible. In several cases we shall also watch a film made of the novel. I shall be sending you questions in advance which I shall expect you to be able to answer in class. I shall also be reminding you which sections of The Art of Fiction to read; the sections I have indicated for the novel should be helpful (particularly those asterisked), but there is much in this book that you will find educative. (Good contributions to discussion will comprise a portion of the final grade.)

ASSIGNMENTS IN ORDER OF PREPARATION — See syllabus handout for specific dates.

Introduction

Students should read AF * 1. Beginning; 2. The Intrusive Author; 5. *4. Teeenage Skaz; 5.The Epistolary Novel; *8. Names; 9. The Stream of Conciousness; 10. Interior Monologue; *13. Lists; *14. *Introducing a Character. *50. Ending

Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary

Read again the sections from AF as above. Also 37. The Telephone. 43. The Title

Hornby, High Fidelity

Hornby, High Fidelity Hornby, High Fidelity

Reread the sections from AF as above; Also * 18 . Weather. *21. Intertextuality. *33. Coincidence. *44. Ideas.

Lodge, Small World

No class

Lodge, Small World First Paper Due

Mid Term Vacation

Trevor, "My House in Umbria" Trevor, "My House in Umbria"

Trevor, "My House in Umbria" McEwan, Enduring Love

McEwan, Enduring Love McEwan, Enduring Love

Zahavi, Dirty Weekend

Easter

McEwan, The Comfort of Strangers

McEwan, The Comfort of Strangers

Trevor, "Reading Turgenev" Trevor, "Reading Turgenev"; Amis, Dead Babies

Last Thursday: No Class: Friday Schedule

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PAPER TOPICS

In the first essay-due February 26--you will write on either Bridget Jones's Diary or High Fidelity. Or you can rent the video and compare the film to the book. I shall email you some more specific suggestions. We shall then discuss paper topics in class; please come prepared with questions (5 pp.). In the term paper you will discuss themes from novels that you have not previously written,on (6-8 pp) I shall, again, email you with suggested topics.

Students will revise their first papers. Term papers will be due preferably at the final examination but no later than 5.00 p.m. on Thursday May 6.

Please note that the writing center has an excellent pamphlet on writing papers.

Writing assignments

All papers must be typed, except for those completed in the classroom. The arrival of late essays will be noted and the student's final grade will be penalized accordingly. Students must retain a printed copy of their papers; the assumption that a copy of an essay will continue to reside on a diskette or a hard drive does not remain an acceptable substitute. In the event that a paper goes unaccountably astray, it is the student's responsibility to have a replacement. Ideally papers should be handed to me in the classroom; but, in certain circumstances, they can be handed to a secretary in the English Department (please make sure that she has noted the time and date the essay was submitted. Papers can also be slipped under my office door (but this is the least desirable mode of submission).

Because of viruses NO essays will be accepted as attachments to e-mail. With the instructor's prior approval, papers may be faxed on certain occasions.

Formal essays should have a title and an epigraph. For further advice about my criteria for a successful essay, please see the link to "Tips on Writing" on my home page. Those tips will be further updated with links to comparable advice provided by fellow instructors in the Core Humanities Program and in the English Department.

CLASSROOM DISCUSSION

Lively discussion is required and your contributions will be reflected in your final grade. "Speaking across the curriculum" has again been recognized as an important component of education in American universities.

GRADES

Final grades will be based primarily (but by no means exclusively) upon the performance of undergraduates in their essays. Students are encouraged to revise their first paper after we have discussed it in conference. (The new grade will not replace the old one, but improvements will be registered in a new grade which should improve the undergraduate's overall grade. Please note that a revision will NOT be accepted as a revision UNLESS it is accompanied by a copy of the original paper with my suggestions and corrections upon it.) Undergraduates are encouraged to visit the Writing Center; I shall keep a copy of the peer counselor's report in each student's individual file.

Email has become an important part of all our lives; I shall keep a printed record of each undergraduate's communications with me. E-mails sent during the course should not be treated as "shopping lists" or as other scribbles designed "for your eyes only." Grammar, spelling, and general literacy will thus be scrutinized.

The final examination will be held on Tuesday May 4, 1.30-4.00 in White 120. The examination is open-book: you can bring notes, syllabi, e-mails, and whatever else you wish to the examination room; the permissibility of laptops is open to debate. This final is important insofar as I am convinced that a student's performance on the identification and commentary question reflects her familiarity with crucial passages ofthe works that we have discussed during the semester. Please note that I often comment in the class-room that "This is an important passage; students should realize that it comprises just the kind of passage that will appear in the identification and commentary question." (Hint: take some notes.) There will also be an essay question in the final examination: it will invite you to take a section of David Lodge's Art of Fiction and show how it illuminates a passage in one of the novels we have read.

A variety of other "imponderables" also enters into the assignment of a final grade. Improvement (particularly in writing) can prove a major consideration. Remember to bring your books to class; remember to take your books out of your book-bag; remember to open your books to the pages we are discussing. Students who neglect to bring their books invite summary extrusion from the classroom. Don't fall asleep in the classroom; don't stare blankly out the window; or don't endeavor, surreptitiously, to catch up with work for other classes. Don't chatter with, or pass clandestine notes to, your colleagues. Read the newspaper at home, please. A student's overall attitude is important, and it will be noted. Please remember, too, that grades in every class must display some "curving."

Grading is an art not a science. I refrain from assigning "cut and dried" percentages for written work, for classroom discussion, for the final examination, and for other components of the semester's grade. I do, however, expect contributions to class discussion and a competent performance on the final examination. (A rule ofthumb for percentages might be: 65% formal writing; 20% final exam; 15% class discussion.) Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice. Let me underline that I do expect a competent performance on the final examination. Any doubts that I may have entertained about a student's performance are often confirmed there. On the other hand,

seemingly drowsy students blow away all my suspicions with a stellar performance in the examination room.

Class communication

Students are expected to read their e-mails (since the e-classroom becomes more of a reality each year). Remember that I shall be sending you sets of questions about the novels. If you arrive in class and find yourself in a minority of one (or two or even three) as regards a missive from me, there is clearly something wrong with your communication system! Often I make significant remarks in e-mails about the works we have discussed. The serious student will keep a record of these. Students (particularly those who have been absent from class, for whatever reason) are required to remain familiar with the syllabus and with fresh postings about the class.

Academic honesty

Given the enticements of the Web (schoolsucks.com &c), plagiarism seems to have gone high tech. You should realize, however, that your instructors' search engines are awesomely powerful. . . At a more old-fashioned level, professors pass students papers around and I may well have already read "that paper you borrowed from a friend who submitted it to artother class."

You are required to familiarize yourself with the latest statements of the university's policies on academic honesty.. You will also read the sections on plagiarism in the primer assigned by the university Read this material with particular attention to problems of using work not your own. Paper topics will be designed to discourage any temptation to plagiarism. You should be aware that I have reported students for plagiarism in the past and that I shall not hesitate to do so again. The university protocols for dealing with my reports protect the interests of both professor and student, but they are, necessarily, time-consuming and laborintensive. Far better that you should avoid, scrupulously, any suspicion of plagiarism on your part. Students should also be aware that powerful search-engines have been devised for detecting any plagiarism from materials on the www; the resources of the web may seem to make it easier to pull of plagiarism, but they make academic dishonesty far more detectable.

Please make use of the Writing Center. Its guidebook, How to Write a College Paper, is excellent and is highly recommended.

Etiquette

Gentlemen may wear hats. Undergraduates are requested to eschew the use of bubblegum in the classroom and during conferences. (Chewing gum, by contrast, is permissible.)

Unexplained absences, as well as late arrivals to class, will be recorded by the instructor. If you arrive late for class or turn in a late paper, please confirm that I have made the appropriate changes in my record book. Please familiarize yourself with university policy on absences that lack a legitimate excuse.

Students can, alas, encounter sudden crises in their lives-I am always sympathetic-but please do not wait until the end of the semester to explain why you haven't attended class or submitted papers. I am not nosey about your personal dramas, but a call from the University's Counseling Center or a doctor's note will help substantiate explanations. The university requires that students br prepared to document their reasons for missing class. Please note university deadlines for "WXing a class." If your name still appears on my final grade sheet and you have, for whatever reason, disappeared from the class without leaving a paper trail, I gather from the Registrar's Office that your capacity to receive a passing grade will be very gravely compromised.

Academic Accommodations for Qualified Students with Disabilities

"It is the policy of Villanova University to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and wish to request accommodations to complete your course requirements, please make an appointment with the course professor as soon as possible to discuss the request. If you would like infonnation on documentation requirements, contact the Office of Learning Support Services at 610-519-5636, or visit the office in Geraghty Hall."