VIC306H1S Syllabus – Valid as of November 19, 2015. Any subsequent versions issued by the instructor will take precedence.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO - VICTORIA COLLEGE

2016 SPRING

VIC306H1S: Culture and Media

NF006; Thursdays 3-5

INSTRUCTOR: Professor Eva-Lynn Jagoe

CONTACT INFORMATION: e.jagoe@utoronto.ca
OFFICE HOURS: Office: Isabel Bader 315. Office hours Thurs 1-3 and by apt
COURSE WEBSITE: https://portal.utoronto.ca

Accessibility Needs (www.accessibility.utoronto.ca)

If you require accommodations for a disability, or have any accessibility concerns about the course, the
classroom or course materials, please contact Accessibility Services as soon as possible.

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In the 21st century, the cultural turn towards self-accounting and recounting is shaped not only by the
literary memoir, but also by other autobiographic mediatic forms such as documentary, performance art,
theatre, blogs, graphic novel, and essay. Memoir raises question about the blurred lines between memory
and forgetting and fiction and documentation. This course engages narrative and non-narrative forms of
memoir so as to examine issues around neoliberal demands and expectations on the constitution of self, as
well as generic issues around popular writing, online dissemination, auto-fiction, and critical memoir.

REQUIRED TEXTS
Texts:
Lauren Slater Lying (2000)
Etel Adnan In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005)
Chris Kraus I Love Dick (2006)
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty film dir. Terence Nance (2012)
Amarnath Ravva American Canyon (2015)
Paul B. Preciado Testo Junkie (2013)
Maggie Nelson The Argonauts (2015)
Bhanu Kapil Ban en Banlieue (2015)
Karen Green Bough Down (2011)
Gillian Rose, Love’s Work (2011)

Chapters and Websites:

Wendy Brown, Introduction to Undoing the Demos
Judith Butler ―Introduction,‖ Senses of the Subject (2015)
Wayne Koestenbaum ―My 1980s‖(2013) and ―Through a Glass Randomly: Matias Viegener’s 2500
Random Things About Me Too”
Eve K Sedgwick, ―Teaching/Depression‖ and ―White Glasses‖
Sara Ahmed, Feminist Killjoys blog
Bhanu Kapil, Shame May be Fatal blog

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WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION: MIXED GENRE MEMOIR (JAN 14)
Judith Butler ―Introduction,‖ Senses of the Subject (2015)

WEEK 2: THE ―I‖ (JAN 21)

Lauren Slater Lying (2000)

WEEK 3: POLITICS (JAN 28)

Etel Adnan In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005) and Wendy Brown, Introduction to
Undoing the Demos

WEEK 4: OBSESSION (FEB 4)

Chris Kraus I Love Dick (2006) and An Oversimplification of Her Beauty dir. Terence Nance (2012).
First essai must be posted.

WEEK 5: GENRE AND MEMORY (FEB 11)

Amarnath Ravva American Canyon (2015) Wayne Koestenbaum ―My 1980s”(2013) and ―Through a
Glass Randomly: Matias Viegener’s 2500 Random Things About Me Too”

WEEK 6: READING WEEK

WEEK 7: TRANS AND IDENTITY (FEB 25)

Paul B. Preciado Testo Junkie (2013)

WEEK 8: TRANS AND INTIMACY (MAR 3)

Maggie Nelson The Argonauts (2015)

WEEK 9: CATCH UP (MAR 10)

Workshop essais

WEEK 10: SELF AND ERASURE (MAR 17)

Bhanu Kapil Ban en Banlieue (2015) and http://jackkerouacispunjabi.blogspot.ca

WEEK 11: GRIEF (MAR 24)

Karen Green Bough Down and Sedgwick, ―White Glasses‖ and ―Teaching/Depression‖
http://sfonline.barnard.edu/heilbrun/sedgwick_01.htm
Collaborative Projects Due

WEEK 12: (MAR 31)

Collaborative Project Workshop

WEEK 13: MEMOIR FORMS (APR 7)

Gillian Rose, Love’s Work and http://feministkilljoys.com

Important Dates
March 13th 2016 is the last day to withdraw without academic penalty.

April 8th 2016 is the last day to request LWD from S section code courses. See your Registrar’s
Office for details.

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 COURSE WORK AND GRADING

Assessment Tool Grading Weight Due Date(s)

Essais (4 total, 500-750 words, 1st one by Feb 4
40%
posted to blog by Wednesday
(10% each)
afternoon)
Collaborative Project 20% March 24
Class Participation 20% throughout
Final Project (see below) 20% Apr 7

Essais:
The course will be run workshop-style: the first half of each class will be devoted to a focussed
discussion of the reading for that week; the second half of each class will be devoted to workshopping
essais (memoir, literary criticism, literary theory) by members of the class. Such workshopping will
enable us to access the reading for that week from a different position at the same time that we each put
our writing to certain valuable tests. The writer(s) must post the essai to all members of the class on the
Wednesday night before the class in which it is being critiqued.
The class will host a blog, on which you will post 5 essais (500-750 words) throughout the
semester. I am calling them ―essais‖ to differentiate them from the academic essay. Think of them more
as drawing from the etymology of ―essai‖ which is ―to attempt.‖ The essais can be: Analytic essays that
take up some aspect of the reading in particular; personal criticism that takes up some aspect of the
reading in particular; experiments in memoir that may or may not have the reading in mind; in short, any
brief but sustained (only in the sense of substantive) piece of prose that is relevant to the course.
Only one of your essais will be critiqued in the workshop, though all of you will post the essais
publicly and be able to comment on each others. The workshop will be a constructive group exercise in
which you will receive feedback and comments.

Collaborative Project:
A 3-5 person group webpage project. There are a variety of approaches to excavating a single
topic—the ―scrapbook‖ form; short sections with frequent new beginnings; multimedia components;
archival work; and movements back and forth between personal history and a larger, social history. With
your group, settle on a topic that has some resonance for each of you. Think about ways of structuring a
short but multivoiced, multiperspective, multihistory archeology of the topic. Your various brief sections
should evoke different private and public space, different personalities, different bodies experienced from
the outside and the inside. Work individually and collectively on the pieces. There is no set length.

Final Project:
I give students in the seminar the option of submitting work in one of two forms at semester’s end:

1. a portfolio containing no less than 20 and no more than 30 pages of material representative of at
least two of the genres described below and/or others that you have discussed with me in
advance;
2. a seminar paper.

If you choose the portfolio option, your portfolio could contain: short (5-10 page) analytic essays
that are revised versions of material workshopped in class; a proposal for a book-length memoir; focused
annotated bibliographies (of at least five titles) of critical, theoretical, or memoiristic texts out of which
might emerge a piece of non-fiction or an analytic paper that may or may not appear in the portfolio; a
piece of creative non-fiction; a chapter of a memoir-in-progress; memoiristic or critical prose that is
responsive to problematics, challenges, and/or experiments suggested in class. If you choose the seminar

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paper, you need to submit a 1-p proposal to me by March 24 so that we can discuss the topic and texts
before you begin writing.
Participation
Participation marks are awarded for active attention and constructive class interaction and workshopping,
for clear evidence of familiarity with assigned readings, and for focused attention and participation in the
seminar and assignments. Your participation grade will be based on reasoned, thoughtful and informed
contributions to this course.
Assignments
Essais are due online to Blackboard by 6pm on the appropriate date noted above.
Late assignments will be subject to a 4% late penalty per day (including weekends), starting the day after
the due date.
Assignments will not be accepted 5 days after the due date.

If there are extenuating circumstances (illness, death in family) that prevent you from completing an
assignment on-time you must email the instructor as soon as possible, preferably BEFORE the deadline
and NO LATER than one week after the due date. Requests for extensions will be granted if there are
legitimate medical or compassionate grounds only. Documentation (such as the official UofT medical
form, which can be found here: www.illnessverification.utoronto.ca) must be submitted.
Academic Misconduct (http://uoft.me/CodeofBehaviour)
The University of Toronto’s Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters outlines the behaviours that
constitute academic misconduct, the processes for addressing academic offences, and the penalties that
may be imposed. You are expected to be familiar with the contents of this document. Teaching
Assistants and Instructors are required to report any instance of suspected academic dishonesty to
the Program Office.

Potential offences include, but are not limited to:

In papers and assignments:
 Using someone else’s ideas or words without appropriate acknowledgement.
 Submitting your own work in more than one course without the permission of the instructor.
 Making up sources or facts.
 Obtaining or providing unauthorized assistance on any assignment (this includes working in
groups on assignments that are supposed to be individual work).
On tests and exams:
 Using or possessing any unauthorized aid, including a cell phone.
 Looking at someone else’s answers.
 Letting someone else look at your answers.
 Misrepresenting your identity.
 Submitting an altered test for re-grading.
Misrepresentation:
 Falsifying or altering any documentation required by the University, including (but not limited to)
doctor’s notes.
 Falsifying institutional documents or grades.

If you have any questions about what is or is not permitted in this course, please do not hesitate to contact
me. If you have questions about appropriate research and citation methods, you are expected to seek out
additional information from me or other available campus resources like the College Writing Centers
www.writing.utoronto.ca/writing-centres/centres/arts-and-science , the Academic Success Centre
www.asc.utoronto.ca , or the U of T Writing Website www.writing.utoronto.ca.