Katy Ryan

293-3107 x424; kohearnr@wvu.edu

Stansbury 354

Office Hours: Tues. and Thurs. 1:15-2:15 and by appt.

Suicide is difficult to read. Despite the hermeneutic crisis it often provokes, self-inflicted death is ubiquitous in literature precisely as a sign: it both generates and structures fictions about self, community, and nation. I anticipate that we will move uneasily between the material practice of self-destruction and its literary representation, aware that bodies and texts are never opposed, overtly unopposed in this case: the medical determination of suicide follows from acts of reading: examining the body, reconstructing patterns of behavior, interpreting notes. We will read a range of theoretical, fictional, poetic, and theatrical texts that suggest the persistent unclarity and strange appeal of suicidal acts. We will consider why suicide has accumulated such explanatory force and why it persists as a trope in twentieth-century American literary texts.

The syllabus is divided into five interrelated sections

1. The Language of Suicide

2. Falling in Public

3. Framing Histories of Race in America

4. Intertextual Desire: Colonialism, War, Memory

5. Performing Death

In the first section, we will briefly survey the history and language of suicide in Western culture. Then, we will consider how literary theorists have adapted language about death to describe the modern experiences of reading and writing. The remaining sections gather literary texts that share a common engagement with history and political resistance.

"Falling in Public" introduces the literary, psychoanalytical, and medical conflation of passivity and femininity with self-destruction. Here, we read novels in which female characters fall, literally or figuratively, to their deaths. The third section turns toward modern and postmodern negotiations of race in texts that are explicitly structured by self-destructive acts. Borrowing from Huey Newton, we will distinguish between "revolutionary" and "reactionary" suicide. The fourth section focuses, in part, on what Julia Kristeva has referred to as the "most conspicuous sign" of modern writing--intertextuality. We will consider the relationship between power and suicide in novels that either engage with a previous literary text (Wide Sargasso Sea : Jane Eyre. Travesty : The Fall) or position suicide as an entryway into the impossible task of representing historical calamity (Asphodel : World War One. Maus : the Holocaust). The final section offers three quite different theatrical texts that enact the precariousness of the modern self onstage. We will conclude the semester with Ariel, Sylvia Plath's posthumous publication that performs, with uncommon force, the myth of the modern suicidal poet.

In addition to not killing yourself, you are required to be a Resident Expert for one week. You will focus on one week's reading with particular attention. That day, you should come to class with several guiding observations or questions and some related additional material. We will look to you to make connections and keep the conversation moving.

Each week, you will write a one-page, single-spaced, informal response to the readings.

A twenty-page research paper will be due on a date of our choosing. You should talk with me about your project around mid-semester.

Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

H. D., Asphodel

John Hawkes, Travesty

Nella Larsen, Passing

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

Fae Myenne Ng, Bone

Sylvia Plath, Ariel

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

Course Packet available at Mountainlair Copy Center

* indicates a handout

*Emile Durkheim. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. 1897. Trans. John A. Spaulding and

George Simpson. New York: Free Press, 1951. [Preface (34-39), Introduction

(41-53), 145-151, (276), 277-294]

Sigmund Freud. "Mourning and Melancholy." 1914-1916. Complete Psychological

Works. Vol. XIV. Trans. James Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1957. 243-58.

---. "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman." 1920-1922.

Complete Psychological Works. Vol. XVIII. Trans. James Strachey. London:

Hogarth Press, 1955. 147-72.

Georges Minois. History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture. Trans. Lydia

G. Cochrane. [Chapter 11 (278-301]

Kay Redfield Jamison. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. New York: Random

House, 1999. [Chapter 1 (11-25)]

Roland Barthes. "The Death of the Author." Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath.

New York: Noonday Press, 1977. 142-48

Ross Chambers. "Reading, Mourning, and the Death of the Author." Narrative 5.1

(1997): 67-76.

Peggy Phelan. "Not Surviving Reading." Narrative 5.1 (1997): 77-87.

Margaret Higonnet. "Speaking Silences: Women's Suicide." The Female Body in Western

Culture: Contemporary Perspectives. Ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman. Cambridge:

Elisabeth Bronfen. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the Aesthetic. New

York: Routledge, 1992. [Chapter 13 (269-290)]

Diana Fuss. "Freud’s Fallen Women." Yale Journal of Criticism 6.1 (1993): 1-23.

Lisa Lowe. Immigrant Acts. Durham: Duke UP, 1996. 121-127

*Richard Gray. The Life of William Faulkner. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. 136-150.

*Patricia McKee. Producing American Races: Henry James, William Faulkner, Toni

Morrison. Durham: Duke UP, 1999. [Chapter 3 (99-122)]

*Julie Maristuen-Rodakowski. "The Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota."

Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine: A Casebook. Ed. Hertha D. Sweet Wong. New

York: Oxford UP, 2000. 13-26

*Huey P. Newton. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

3-7

*Deborah Anne Moreland. "The Suffragettes, the Great War, and Representation in H.

D.’s Asphodel." Sagetrieb 14.1/2 (1995): 243-260.

*Lawrence Rainey. Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture. New

Haven: Yale UP, 1998. [Chapter 5 (146-168)]

*Gayatri Spivak. "Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism." Critical Inquiry

12.1 (1985): 243-261.

*Jean Rhys. The Letters of Jean Rhys. Ed. Francis Wyndham and Diana Melly. New

York: Viking, 1984. 260-269.

*Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn. "The White Creole Woman's Place in Society." Across the

*James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary

Art and Architecture. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. 12-41.

Jeanne C. Ewert. "Reading Visual Narrative: Art Spigelman’s Maus." Narrative 8.1

(2000): 87-103.

Marianne Hirsh. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory.

Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997. [Chapter 1 (17-40)]

Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. I. Trans. Robert

Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. [Part 5 (135-159)]

Rita Ferrari. Innocence, Power, and the Novels of John Hawkes. Philadelphia: U of

Pennsylvania P, 1996. [Introduction (1-13)]

Joseph M. Conte. " ‘Design and Debris’: John Hawkes’s Travesty, Chaos Theory, and the

Swerve." Critique 37.2 (1996): 120-138.

*Djuna Barnes. The Death of Life. At the Roots of the Stars: The Short Plays. Los

Angeles: Sun & Moon P, 1995.

Linda Wagner, ed. Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1984.

Introduction (1-19).

Elisabeth Bronfen. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the Aesthetic. New

Recommended Texts (* are available at bookstore)

A. Alvarez, The Savage God

Maurice Blanchot, Writing of the Disaster

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (novel)

James Baldwin, Another Country (novel)

Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero

Shari Benstock, "'The word which made all clear': The Silent Close of The House

Jeffrey Berman, Surviving Literary Suicide

Judith Butler, Antigone’s Claim

Geoffrey Canada, Reaching Up for Manhood (epilogue)

Hayden Carruth, "Suicide" (essay) in Suicides and Jazzers

Velina Hasu Houston, Tea (play)

*David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (play)

*Kay Redfield Jamison; Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Abbas Kiarostami, Dir. Taste of Cherry (film)

Hirokazu Kore-eda, Dir. Mabarosi (film)

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (creative memoir)

Howard Kushner, Self-Destruction in the Promised Land (repl. American Suicide)

*Karl Marx, Marx on Suicide, eds. Eric A. Plaut and Kevin Anderson

Mary McCarthy Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown

*Georges Minois, History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture

Dorothy Parker, "Big Blond" (short story)

Eric Rofes, "I Thought People Like That Killed Themselves": Lesbians, Gay Men,

Ntozake Shange, for colored girls (play)

Dorothy Smith, "No One Commits Suicide: Textual Analysis of Ideological

James Welch, The Death of Jim Loney (novel)

Alan Wolfe, The Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan: The Case of Dazai Osamu

Aug. 22:

Anne Sexton, "The Truth the Dead Know," "For John, Who Begs Me Not to Inquire

• Diana Hume George, chapter 8, Oedipus Anne: The Poetry of Anne Sexton. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1987.

• Adrienne Rich, "Anne Sexton: 1928-1974." On Lies, Secrets, and Silences: Selected Prose 1966-1978. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.

Introduction to Durkheim

_______________________________________________________________________

Aug. 29

Emile Durkheim, Suicide

Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholy." 1914-1916.

Georges Minois, History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture.

Kay Redfield Jamison, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.

_______________________________________________________________________

Sept. 5

Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author." Image, Music, Text.

Ross Chambers, "Reading, Mourning, and the Death of the Author."

Peggy Phelan, "Not Surviving Reading."

Alan Warren Friedman, Fictional Death and the Modernist Enterprise.

_______________________________________________________________________

Sept. 12

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

• Margaret Higonnet, "Speaking Silences: Women's Suicide."
• Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the Aesthetic. Chapter 13

____________________________________________________________________

Sept. 19

Nella Larsen, Passing

• Sigmund Freud, "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman."

• Diana Fuss, "Freud’s Fallen Women."

Sept. 26

Fae Myenne Ng, Bone

• Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts.

______________________________________________________________________

Oct. 3

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

• Richard Gray, The Life of William Faulkner. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. 136-150.
• Patricia McKee, Producing American Races: Henry James, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison. Durham: Duke UP, 1999.

_____________________________________________________________________

Oct. 10

Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine

• Julie Maristuen-Rodakowski, "The Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota."

Ernest Hemingway, "Indian Camp"

_______________________________________________________________________

Oct. 17

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

• Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

• Cowley and Mannix, African Slave Trade

_______________________________________________________________________

Oct. 24

H. D. Asphodel

• Deborah Anne Moreland, "The Suffragettes, the Great War, and Representation in H. D.’s Asphodel."

• Lawrence Rainey, Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture.

_______________________________________________________________________

Oct. 31

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

• Gayatri Spivak, "Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism."
• The Letters of Jean Rhys.
• Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn, "The White Creole Woman's Place in Society."

Nov. 7

Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus

• James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge

• Jeanne C. Ewert, "Reading Visual Narrative: Art Spigelman’s Maus."
• Marianne Hirsh, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory.

Paul Celan, from Selected Poetry and Prose

_______________________________________________________________________

Nov. 14

John Hawkes, Travesty

• Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality

• Rita Ferrari. Innocence, Power, and the Novels of John Hawkes.
• Joseph M. Conte, " ‘Design and Debris’: John Hawkes’s Travesty, Chaos Theory, and the Swerve."

_______________________________________________________________________

Nov. 21 Thanksgiving Holiday

_______________________________________________________________________

Nov. 28

Adrienne Kennedy, Funnyhouse of a Negro

Sam Shepard, Suicide in B-Flat

Djuna Barnes, The Death of Life

film: Thelma and Louise

_______________________________________________________________________

Dec. 5

Sylvia Plath, Ariel

• Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body. Chapter 18 (395-407)

• Linda Wagner, ed. Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath.