English 1102 Course Blog

DeLillo Questions

Sorry for the delay in posting DeLillo questions. I'm recovering a bit from a relapse of whatever flu has been haunting me this winter. Here are a few questions to consider for your blog entries on DeLillo. I'd strongly suggest building whatever entry you write from a specific passage rather than from a general recollection of the text. Quoting from the novel will be looked upon with great favor.

1. Consider the passage on page 46 in which Jack reflects on his trip to the bank (which came up in one class--sorry for the memory lapse). How do you read Jack's discussion of "the networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies" (46)?
2. On page 50, Jack and Murray discuss the pratcice of watching television, with Murray commenting that he and his students endeavor to "find the codes and the messages" (50). How does this discussion fit within the novel's consideration of mass media?
3. Discuss any images of Jack and his family's shopping trips
4. What images of family does the novel offer? How do you interpret these images

You should probably read up to about page 100 by Friday.

Quick Hit Links

Here's a pretty extensive DeLillo webpage, with reference to some biographical and scholarly information.

Here's some information on tomorrow's poetry reading here at Georgia Tech.

Campus Life: Weapons of Mass Destruction: Policy vs. Reality

Just thought some of you might be interested in this lecture by Dale E. Klein, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs:

The Nuclear Engineering Department and the Sam Nunn Security Program cordially invite the campus to a lecture entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Policy vs. Reality” by Dr. Dale E. Klein, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense.

The Honorable Dale E. Klein was sworn in as the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs (ATSD(NCB)) on November 15, 2001. In this position, he is the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology (USD(AT&L)) for all matters concerning the formulation of policy and plans for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Prior to his appointment by President Bush, Dr. Klein was a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear Program) at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the Vice-Chancellor for Special Engineering Programs at The University of Texas System from 1995 until November 2001. Dr. Klein also served as the Chairman and Executive Director of the Amarillo National Research Center (ANRC), during which time he oversaw over $45 million of funding concerning plutonium research and nuclear weapon dismantlement issues.

The lecture is scheduled for 02/19/2004, 11:00AM, in the Instructional Center, Tannenbaum Auditorium (Room 107).

Draw Your Boss

Talk about job dissatisfaction. Check out Draw Your Boss, where disgruntled employees can draw cartoon images of their annoying bosses. Just imagine if you had eight different bosses....

Plagiarism and Fair Use

I thought that some of you who are interested in copyright issues might want access to the Copyright Act of 1976, which spells out how much you can borrow or use from a source.

Plagiarism and the Presidency

Here's a quick link to a resource on plagiarism. The assigned material in the Bedford Researcher is generally sufficient, but Michael Harvey refers to the example of the accusations that presidential candidate Joe Biden plagiarized material from speeches and interviews by British orator Neil Kinnock and former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. It was later revealed that Biden had received a failing grade in a law class because he plagiarized. As Harvey cautions: "be afraid of plagiarism. It creates paper-trail timebombs that can destroy a career you've spent decades building—especially today, when teachers routinely keep copies of papers and the Internet makes it a snap to compare texts and locate sources."

Warning

A few of you still haven't turned your papers in to turnitin.com. The clock is ticking.

Weekend Update

Two quick details about the research project:

1. Several students have asked if they can compare two (or maybe three) cultural texts rather than focusing on just one text. Yes, you can.
2. You should be prepared to bring in some work pertaining to your research proposal on Wednesday, either a draft of the proposal or some notes for a class workshop activity.

Don't forget that we will be meeting in the library on Friday. Be sure to show up on time.

New Policy on Turnitin.com

In order to be fair to the students who have been submitting their papers properly, my new policy is that you must submit your paper to turnitin.com before I will return your paper or reveal your grade.

If you need the turnitin.com information, let me know. The link to their webpage is in the upper right-hand corner of this blog.

The Ring Readings on Electronic Reserve

Two essays on The Ring should be available on electronic reserve, Jeffrey Sconce on "Haunted Media" and Andrew Tudor on "Postmodern Horror." Stay tuned for further details.

Music Police At It Again

...and I'm not talking about the band. The Kazaa offices in Sydney, Australia, were raided today, according to this Associated Press article. Quick, hide the data!

Jimmy Carter Blog

Former President Jimmy Carter is blogging his trip to West Africa through the Carter Center website. Carter's trip appears to be primarily focused on addressing some of the health issues that many African nations are facing.

Cross-Posted on my personal blog.

Questions for Discussion: The Ring

[Quick note: I'll have a few things to say about Turnitin.com in class on Wednesday. You will be required to submit your essays, but I will need to provide you with specific course ID and password information.]

Here are a few advance questions for this week's discussion of The Ring (IMDB site) (official site), which we will be watching this week. When you write your blog entries, you must respond to one of the following questions, but you should keep all of these questions in mind as you watch the film. As you watch, pay careful attention to the film's visual style, specifically its use of color, spcae, lighting, and props. For example, one recurrent image, or motif, might be the number of screens (TV screens, windshields, mirrors, windows) we see throughout the film. Keep in mind that motifs can imply both consistency and contrast (comparisons between city and country, color contrasts, etc).

1. Identify one of the key visual and/or aural motifs in The Ring and discuss its significance to the overall effect and meaning of the film.
2. Many theorists have suggested that horror films have entered a "postmodern" phase, which is characterized in part by reference to earlier horror films. As you watched The Ring, did you catch references to earlier films? Which films? What is the overall effect of this type of allusion on the viewer?
3. Throughout the film, communications technologies appear to be "haunted," threatening to shatter the safety and security of the film's central characters. Identify several of the references to communications technologies and discuss how they function within this logic (keep in mind some of our discussion of identity fragmentation as it pertains to Fight Club).
4. Domestic space is a crucial motif in The Ring. How are families portrayed in the film? How might we compare Rachel's family with the Morgan family?
5. In this context, you might consider ways of making sense of the content of the videotape itself. What can the contents of the videotape be said to represent?

I will place 1-2 essays on electronic reserve this week, which you should be prepared to discuss on Monday.

Library Workshop

On Friday, February 13, class will meet in the Homer Rice Center in the Georgia Tech library where librarin Leslie Madden will provide you with an overview of the scholarly research databases available on Tech's campus. Your research proposal will be due on the same day.

The Ring

In order to allow more people to attend, I will schedule screenings of The Ring for both Wednesday (2/4) and Thursday (2/5) night at 6 PM. If you cannot attend either screening, you will be responsible for viewing the film on your own.