Cold War Exoticism: William Burroughs's Queer, Part One of Two.

Leave your questions here for Queer. Feel free to draw connections between Lee and our other flawed heroes from the past few weeks. 

Academic Applications: The Americans Premieres Tonight.

For the TV-watchers among us, tonight the Fox network will debut its cold-war drama, The Americans. Please feel free to share your expert opinions about the show as the semester and season progress in tandem. (I certainly won't compel you but I'm curious what you think!)

Aliens, Alienation, and Alterity between Shklovsky and Sinyavsky

I offer a few basic questions to get you thinking about our last two readings: the self explanatorily titled "Art as Device," and the gloriously unpronounceable "Pkhents." My objective in having you read these pieces as a pair is to sharpen your critical gaze so that you might apprehend not only the relationship of the theory to the text and the text to the theory, but also that of text and theory to social 'reality' and lived experience. Post your own questions about either or both of these works (or any other we've encountered as a class) below mine.

What does Shklovsky define as the purpose of art and the task of the artist? Against what extant definitions is he working?
- How is art a device? What does it do and how?
- Is “Pkhentz” an allegory? Of what?
- What is the role of reading, writing and words in “Pkhentz”? Mark all the places texts appear in the story.
- How might we compare the description and function of the sexual grotesque in Sinyavsky’s and Baldwin’s stories?
- What do we make of the figure of the alien? In what ways (pl.) do we understand it?

The Sado-Masochistic Erotics of American Racism: Baldwin + Williams, Part 2.

Please post a question below that explores the continuities and contrasts of these complementary short stories, possibly stirring Circus into the pot as well. If you desperately want to post about only one of them, feel free. Otherwise I welcome you to respond to one of the questions posted about these texts--whether in this or the previous thread, by you or your classmates. 

Be sure to indicate the origin of your question in this case, and do use this thread as a way to try out the thesis of your first reader response paper. 

American Authors Confront Race: James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams

- What connections do James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams explore between race, gender and sexuality?

 - Pay attention to the narrative texture of Baldwin's "Going to Meet the Man." How does the story introduce its characters? Who is narrating? - What is the “thrilling silence” Big Jim C. talks about?  And what is the function of black song in the story?

Discussion Questions for Circus

--How are Americans and America depicted? How are Soviets and the Soviet Union depicted? How are Germans depicted?

--What kinds of oppositions—moral and ideological—separate the US and the USSR in the film? How does the film shore up these oppositions with black-and-white/light-and-dark imagery?

--How does the film demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism?

--According to the film, what are the US’s and USSR’s attitudes about race?

--What are the USSR’s attitudes about gender? For instance, who are the new Soviet man and woman? What are their psychological and physical attributes?

--How does the film handle the issues of marriage and romantic love? (Think not only of Marion and Martynov but also Raika and Skameikin.)

--Is this film propaganda, art, entertainment or some combination of the three?

--Why does this ideological struggle take place in the circus? What is the significance of Marion’s “Flight to the Moon” and Martynov’s “Flight to the Stratosphere” acts?

--The dominant metaphor of the film is that the USSR is one big, happy family. Do you agree or disagree? Support your answer.

--What can this film accomplish—artistically and politically—because it is a musical?

--The concept of genre is crucial to the analysis of an artistic text. Circus is not just a musical comedy but also a melodrama. What kinds of emotions does it attempt to invoke in its viewer, how, and to what end?

--What kind of viewer does this film assume? How does it embed these assumptions into its structure?

--How does the film use language—proper and improper Russian as well as non-Russian languages—to convey its ideological message?

Welcome to the Cold War Gets Hot official course website! Please check back for updates as soon as the spring 2013 semester is in full swing.