English M6510 Syllabus

Eminent Writers — Selected Writings of E. L. Doctorow

Syllabus

Please understand that this syllabus is provisional and may need to be compressed/ shortened for reasons of time (= first block).

Week 1	General Introduction: E. L. Doctorow -- A Life of & in Letters Bruce Weber, NYT Obituary and NYT Author Page Adam Kelly, E. L. Doctorow's Postmodernist Style, LARB, Oct 2015 (perhaps to be repositioned) * Please come prepared to have read the first third of Ragtime. Thank you *
Week 2	Ragtime -- The Cliches are Having a Ball E. L. Doctorow, *Ragtime* (1976) ______________________________________ (sign-up for student presentation/seminar facilitation, perhaps in teams of two) Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) Here is a summary or Jameson's major argument in lieu of the (full) essay Angela Hague, "Ragtime and the Movies" (Critical Essays) Focus Questions - Ragtime
Week 3-4	Gothic Gotham, or, Batman in the Geriatric Ward *The Waterworks* (1994) Waterworks I _______________________ Waterworks II _______________________ Brien Diemert, E. L. Doctorow's Gnostic Detective Story, TSLL, 45, 3, 2003: 352-374 Michael Wutz, The Waterworks: Knowledge and Cognition in the Early Age of Data Storage The Ashcan School Focus Questions - The Waterworks Of Related Interest: Keith Richards' (alleged) oil change Northrop Frye on Romance versus the Novel Ron Soodalter, "The Union's 'Shoddy' Aristocracy" Sarah Weicksel, Six Questions with a Civil War Material Culture scholar (The Smithsonian)
Week 5-6	City of God / City of Bits: Signs, Signals, Networks *City of God* (2000) City of God I _______________________ City of God II _______________________ A. O. Scott, A Thinking Man's Miracle, NYT Walter Kirn, Heaven Can Wait, NYTM Michael Wutz, On the Craft of Fiction -- E. L. Doctorow at 80, Weber 29, 1: 2-15. Teachers' Guide to City of God Discussion Questions, City of God Option: Jaquira Diaz Reading, Thus, 5 Oct, SUB #312, 6 PM
Week 7-8	Utah on the Brain -- Narrative, Cognitive Science, and the Late Age of the Humanities *Andrew's Brain* (2014) Andrew I _______________________ Andrew II _______________________ Andrew's Brain, Focus Questions Ron Rosenbaum, The End of Everything: E. L. Doctorow's Last Warning, LARB E L Doctorow, 2013 Gold Medal -- National Book Awards: Internet, Brain, Surveillanc e E L Doctorow, All the Time in the World (excerpt) Marco Roth, Rise of the Neuronovel, n+1, Sept 2009; Neuronovel II; Jonah Lehrer, Frontal Cortex Useful Background: Cognitive Science I, Cognitive Science II, (Go Cognitive) V.S. Ramachandran, 3 Clues to Understanding your Brain (Ted Talk) Of related interest: ELD on Andrew's Brain Celebration of E. L. Doctorow with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jennifer Egan, 92Y, 17 Jan 2017

Should you have time for additional readings, beyond the limits of our course, let me please suggest the following: (a) The Book of Daniel (1971); (b) The March (2005); (c) Collected Short Stories (2017). I will try to integrate these texts and selections into our discussion, as appropriate.

Below are additional links to useful websites on E. L. Doctorow's work -- to be enlarged. Please stay tuned! :)

ELD links on CALPAL, including ELD on video
http://www.eldoctorow.com/
E. L. Doctorow and/in The New Yorker
Sam Jordison, The Waterworks -- A Macabre Masterpiece (Guardian, 8 Sept 2015)
MSU, The Signature Lecture Series: E. L Doctorow (2012), including an interview
NYU, From Ragtime to Our Time: E. L. Doctorow Donates his Papers to the NYU S Fales Library
Joseph G. Ramsey, "The Limits of Optimism: E. L. Doctorow and the American Left"
Ben Siegel, Ed. Critical Essays on E. L. Doctorow. G.K. Hall & Co, 2000.
Bruce Weber, "The Myth Maker," NYT, 20 October 1985
Bingel, Hannah. “Fictional Narratives and Their Ways of Spiritual Worldmaking: (De-) Constructing the Realm of Transcendence in City of God by Way of Metafiction and Multiperspectivity.” Nünning, Vera, Ansgar Nünning, Birgit Neuman, et. al., eds. Cultural Ways of Worldmaking. Media and Narratives. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2010, 287-306 (print source only).
Doctorow, E. L. Citizen Doctorow, Notes on Art & Politics: The Nation Essays 1978-2015. Ed. Richard Lingeman, Afterword by Victor Navasky. New York: The Nation Co., 2015.