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Author: Professor Sean Scanlan (Page 3 of 3)
UPDATES FOR FEB 4:
Due to an earlier scheduled City Tech meeting, I won’t be able to hold office hours today. Please email any questions: sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu
I apologize for the inconvenience.
-Prof. Scanlan
Dear ENG2400 Students:
Greetings, and welcome to ENG2400: Film from Literature. I am your professor, Sean Scanlan, and I look forward to working with you this semester.
The spring 2021 semester begins on Friday, January 29, and so I wanted to let you all know some important information about our online course.
Our class is synchronous. This which means that we have set meeting days and times.
We meet Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:00 pm on Zoom.Â
Please note that my email is sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu (please use your City Tech email to contact me).
*OUR FIRST CLASS WILL MEET ON ZOOM AT 2:30 ON THURSDAY, FEB 4, 2021.
ZOOM INFORMATION: THIS LINK WILL BE USED FOR EVERY CLASS
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89722646101?pwd=N1lkTW03ajlDV2NHQUlXWUlORysrUT09
MEETING ID: 897 2264 6101
PASSCODE: Films-2222
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If you have trouble getting onto Zoom, please email me: sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu. If things are really frustrating, you can text/call me: 718-308-7132 (please use my number sparingly).
Getting started: One of the most important questions in our class will be: what is a story and what is a narrative? How can we define it?
Let’s read this short story by Jose Luis Borges:
The Captive
by Jose Luis Borges, published 1960
The story is told in JunĂn or in TapalquĂ©n. A boy disappeared after an Indian attack. People said the Indians had kidnapped him. His parents searched for him in vain. Then, long years later, a soldier who came from the interior told them about an Indian with blue eyes who might well be their son. At length they found him (the chronicle has lost the circumstances and I will not invent what I do no know) and thought they recognized him. The man, buffeted by the wilderness and by barbaric life, no longer knew how to understand the words of his mother tongue, but indifferent and docile, he let himself be led home. There he stopped, perhaps because the others stopped. He looked at the door as if he did not know what it was for. Then suddenly he lowered his head, let out a shout, ran across the entrance way and the two long patios, and plunged into the kitchen. Without hesitating, he sank his arm into the blackened chimney and pulled out the little horn-handled knife he had hidden there as a boy. His eyes shone with joy and his parents wept because they had found their son.
Perhaps this recollection was followed by others, but the Indian could not live within walls, and one day he went in search of his wilderness. I wonder what he felt in that dizzying moment when past and present became one. I wonder whether the lost son was reborn and died in that instant of ecstasy; and whether he ever managed to recognize, if only as an infant or a dog does, his parents and his home.Â
Source: Borges, Jorge Luis. Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin, 1998, p 300.
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HOMEWORK: These two tasks are due before class on Thursday, February 11:
1–Please fill out the First Week Questionnaire — see below.
2–Read Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” which can be found in the “Readings” menu tab — at the bottom. And in your notes (either a physical notebook or on your digital device) describe the story according to the 5-Part Reading Tool. And finally, did you like the story? Why or why not? We will discuss this story, and I will ask questions in order to get the conversation started. Next week, in class, we will watch and discuss short film versions of these stories.
Best wishes,
Sean Scanlan
First Week Questionnaire for ENG2400
Hi Everybody,
This is where we will share our ideas on subjects related to film and literature. For this first coffeehouse post, read two short stories: Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (both can be found in the Readings menu tab). And then write a 300-word post that focusses on two parts of the Five Part Tool in particular: #2 Setting and #5 Metaphors, Symbols, and Images. Refer to the specific questions on the handout. One paragraph for each short story is fine.
–DUE DATE: before class on February 18.
Coffeehouse posts should be conversational, friendly, and experimental. This means that you don’t have to be overly formal, but you should stretch yourself in terms of vocabulary and sentence structures. And, of course, please proof your work carefully before publishing. Informal writing does not mean sloppy, incoherent, ungrammatical, misspelled writing. For example, students who do not use standard capitalization and type the word “i” in place of the upper case I will not receive credit until they revise their post.
Total word count: at least 300 words.
How do we post to OpenLab? It’s pretty simple. Once logged in and on our class site, go to Dashboard, and find Posts > Add New on the top-left. Then, click the Category type. Once you click the category “Coffeehouse, #1” then you can start typing. Proofread your work, then save. Then, you can preview it. Finally, click publish.
Here’s a short video I made last semester on how to create and post a Virtual Coffeehouse post:
Here are the directions from OpenLab:
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Cheers,
Prof. Scanlan
