Grades Uploaded, and Next Semester

Hi there!

Grades for this class have been uploaded. If you have any inquiries about your grade, please first read this page for more information on the handling of grading disputes before contacting me.

Also, if you’re curious about courses I’ll be teaching next semester (Fall 2008), there’s a list on the front page of this site.  Have a look and see if anything appeals to you: there are several courses focused on creative work, as well as a literature course.

Have a good summer!

About Preparing for the Final Exam

A couple of students have come to me in a panic, wondering what they need to do to prepare for the final exam in this class.

One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is this: DON’T PANIC.

I can’t actually tell you which questions will be on the exam, because I’m still in the process of selecting questions from those you submitted to me last class. However, I can give you a few pointers. You have an advantage, which is that you have all experienced the midterm exam, and remember the kinds of questions I asked you there. Similarly, you have all had a chance to prepare some thoughtful writing about each of the topics we’ve discussed in class during panel discussions.

You will have a choice in terms which questions you answer, but I will also try to make the question broad enough to let you talk about the things you’re most interested in/confident about. One approach would be to have classmates email you some of the questions they submitted, so that you can think those questions over. While the same specific questions might not appear on the exam, thinking about them will help you prepare for the analytical task the exam will involve.

You are responsible for everything discussed in the course. However, in practical terms, I won’t be asking anything about, for example, The West Wing.  The focus of the final exam will be on what was dealt with since the midterms. This doesn’t mean you cannot refer to Lost, Bamboozled, The West Wing, or V for Vendetta, in your answers to essay questions. (For example, if discussing the archetype of The Other in Blade Runner, you might want to refer to Bamboozled. You’re free to do that, but you should focus on Blade Runner if you do.) It does, however, mean that you will probably want to focus on things we’ve discussed since midterms.

I cannot recommend any specific topics for study, however, except to repeat myself: you’re responsible for everything we’ve discussed since midterms.

However, you probably have noticed that I am interested in a few things specifically:

In other words, it’s all about thinking things over and expressing ideas that go beyond the surface! The preparation and reaction papers you’ve been preparing all semester long are, I hope, great practice in this.

Remember: the longest essay isn’t always the best. It often pays to sit and think a little, to write up an outline or plan, take some notes, and then start writing your ideas down. Diving into an essay headfirst without preparing your thoughts is almost certainly likely to result in an essay that is not as good as you could have written.

Finally: there will be three questions on this exam:

I think that’s all the advice I can offer. Good luck, and see you on Tuesday afternoon!

The Name of the Book

I handed out a short excerpt for Thursday’s class, and said I would post the name of the book for you. It’s from this book.

Announcement for Next Semester

Interested in Writing a Graphic Novel?

In Fall semester 2008, there will be a special course offered under the name Multimedia English Education and taught by Gord Sellar. In fact, this course will consist of planning, outlining, writing, and completely creating a graphic novel –  that is, a novel-length and novel-quality “comic book” which will subsequently be published online. (Print publication might be sought, depending on the outcome of the project.)

Students who are interested in a hands-on project in which they can creatively use and develop their English skills are encouraged to consider this course. You needn’t be an “artist,” although talented artists are certainly welcome.

For more information, please contact me.

Next Week

Hi there,

I’ll be lecturing on June 3rd — and talking about your Final Exam, as well. There is nothing necessaryto prepare for that day except your feedback papers for the third panel discussion last Thursday.
We have one presentation left in our course! That’s this one:

June 5th: What Will Tomorrow Look Like? — The Fifth Element and Brazil

Sang Woon Hong, Sun Jun Choi, Yu-hwa Han, Minjoo Yu

Please make sure to see both those movies.

For June 10th, I ask that you watch the film Blade Runner — we’ll be looking at parts of the film in class, but not the whole thing. There’s a new director’s cut that supposedly is the best ever - I’m hoping we can see that one.

And for June 12th, we’ll be discussing the influence of science fiction — an important part of American popular culture, and my speciality — on general culture. In preparation for this, I’m going to ask you to watch Jon Ronson’s documentary Crazy Rulers, which is available on Google video:

Crazy Rulers is a bit long, but pretty weird and entertaining. Please make sure to set aside some time this week to see it, since next week you’ll be too busy with studying for exams!

UPDATE:

Oh no! The Jon Ronson videos seem to have gone offline. There are some small excerpts from them, though, available. Here are some short clips from the documentary: please watch these and I’ll give you a small bit of Ronson’s book to read if the files don’t come back online:

The first clip

Two clips on the “First Earth Battalion” (1, 2)

On Waco, Texas.

And here is the text of the crazy First Earth Battalion handbook that is discussed in the documentary. Read it, but be careful not to lose your mind!

Korean Pulp Resources Link

Masterly Master Lee is (I think) a Korean blogger who is very into Korean pulp culture. If you have a look around his site, you’ll see lots of pulp pop culture, and it’ll give you a better idea of the kind of thing we discussed in class in relation to Kill Bill.

For May 20th, and the Week After

For May 20th, we’ll be talking about The Sopranos a little bit, since it wasn’t discussed in class, we’ll compare it with an episode of another crime-focused TV show, the sitcom Weeds. In preparation, I’m going to ask you to watch the (hilarious, bizarre) anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness (or download it here) and read a little bit about the cultural history of Reefer Madness at Wikipedia. If you want to read the [reconstructed] movie script, it’s here.

For interesting comparison, this discussion of the history of the hemp plant in Japan is worth looking at; I couldn’t really find information on the history of hemp in Korea but the article suggests it historically arrived in Japan from China; this suggests it probably arrived via Korea, and may have been used in medicine here as it was in China historically. Most interesting is the fact that marijuana was banned in many countries because of US pressure. Was this also the case in Korea?

Following this discussion, there will be a Panel Discussion on Bechdel’s Test, also known as Bechdel’s Law.

Wikipedia describes Bechdel’s Law as a part of online popular culture. It was first mentioned in a webcomic by Alison Bechdel, where a character says she doesn’t watch movies if they cannot pass her test. To pass the test, the movie must meet all three of the following criteria:

  1. It has to have at least two women in it.
  2. The two women must talk to each other in the movie.
  3. Their conversation must be about something else besides a man.

Of course, many movies don’t pass this test. In the panel discussion, we can discuss which movies do pass the test, or might pass the test, but another interesting question is why so few movies do pass the test… and why women go to movies as much as they do despite this fact.

In other words, we’ll be discussing why so many of the archetypes we’ve talked about in class are applied to male characters, while female characters are so often “the girlfriend” or “the love interest” or just one part of a “love triangle,” without much character or individuality on their own… more almost like something for men to fight over.

(The way, for example, Kate is in later episodes of Lost, especially in Season three onward.)

For preparation, you can consider looking at your own favorite movies to see how women are depicted in them, and think about how you feel about this.

We will not be having class on May 22nd, due to the University festival. Have fun, but don’t forget to spend some time preparing for the following week!

For the week after, we’ll be discussinga lot of movies:

May 27th’s Panel discussion will focus on Kill Bill and the Black Widow archetype of the violent female character. It’s a good idea to watch both parts of the Kill Bill duology, meaning Kill Bill Part 1 and Kill Bill Part 2. That’s a lot of blood and violence, so make sure you schedule a break between the two… unless you like that kind of thing, that is. If you don’t know Quentin Tarantino, the director, you could also check out what Wikipedia has to say about him, or choose another film by him to watch. (Jackie Brown is an excellent and pertinent film to the discussion.)

On May 29th, we’ll be discussing the romantic comedies of Nora Ephron, specifically When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. You should choose two of these and watch them.

That’s a heavy load of films to watch, so making sure you watch some of them ahead of time is a good idea!

Treasure Island

Though my lecture tomorrow will discuss pirates in several different contexts, the most influential book on this version of the Outlaw archetype is Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The book is available online free, in many different forms:

There are also illustrated scans of original print editions online — check the links at the end of the Wikipedia article linked at the first link in this post. It’s a favorite of young readers, meaning the English in the book, though it is somewhat old-fashioned, should be understandable to most EFL readers, like you! Enjoy!

May 6th, and for May 13th/15th

In class on May 6th, we checked out:

We also shifted gears and start talking about another archetype, opposites of the Soldier/Man of Action — the Outlaw and the Rebel. We’ll see how far we get with that.

I’m going to be asking you to watch one film for next week’s lecture — Pirates of the Caribbean — and to listen to a three-part radio-documentary on pirates from the BBC World Service (part 1 | part 2 | part 3).

And please check out this essay on pirates, American culture, and pirate-fashion: Skulls & Crossbones: America’s Consumptions of Pirate Symbolism.

For May 15th, make sure you have watched two episodes from Season 1 of The Sopranos, plus the film The Silence of the Lambs.

It’s Everybody’s War (new link)

Hi there!

The Internet Archive link for the short film It’s Everybody’s War doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. (Of course! Thanks for letting me know, Jin Ju!)

However, you can see it at Google videos, here.

Next Page →