Studies in Contemporary Literature: Suggested Books to Read and Review

In my graduate course, Studies in Contemporary Literature, along with reading the regular book list, students are asked to read and write a review of one book of (relatively) contemporary literature not on the regular syllabus, or in some cases a somewhat older book that was recently translated into English. Books are chosen as follows: students give me a list of three contemporary books of literature that they have liked, and then I suggest an author and/or a title for them. I hope my suggestions both speak to their interests and challenge them. If the students are uncomfortable with the title I suggest, they can request a new suggestion. 

Keep in mind then that this list is not a general list of contemporary books of literature that I like, but one that is based first on the interests of the students, and only then on my own ideas of what might work for them. Not surprisingly to me, most of the students gave me lists of fiction only, but there were several exceptions.

I’m finding it useful to keep a list of my suggestions, and thought others might be interested too.

Berg, Aase: Remainland 
Borkhius, Charles: After Image 
Can Xue: Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories 
Carter, Angela: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories 
Castle, Terry: The Professor and Other Writings 
China’s Avant Garde Fiction: An Anthology, ed. Jing Wang and others
Harrison, M. John: Light 
Jaffe, Harold: False Positive 
Kraus, Chris: Aliens and Anorexia 
Lispector, Clarice (new translations): The Passion According to G.H., or A Breath of Life 
Lu, Pamela: Ambient Parking Lot 
Mahfouz, Naguib: Arabian Nights and Days 
Martin, Stephen-Paul: The Possibility of Music 
Mutis, Alvaro: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll (seven novellas)
Olsen, Lance: Calendar of Regrets 
Pelevin, Victor: The Blue Lantern, or Omon Ra 
Pynchon, Thomas: Inherent Vice 
Saramago, Jose: Blindness 
Tillman, Lynne: This Is Not It 
Valenzuela, Luisa: The Censors, or Bedside Manners 
Zambreno, Kate: Green Girl 
Zurita, Raul: Purgatory

Studies in Contemporary Literature: Fall 2012 book list

Studies in Contemporary Literature
LTWR 513 Section 01
Wed 5:30-8:15
Mark Wallace
Office Hours: W/Th 3:00-4:00

Texts (in alphabetical order):

Kevin Davies, The Golden Age of Paraphernalia
Junot Diaz, Drown
Debra Di Blasi, The Jiri Chronicles and Other Fictions
Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (online resources)
Brian Evenson, Fugue State
Gurlesque, ed. Glenum and Greenberg
Bhanu Kapil, Humanimal
Philip Levine, What Work Is
Bernadette Mayer, Scarlet Tanager
Lynn Nottage, Ruined
Patrik Ourednik, Europeana
Rodrigo Toscano, Collapsible Poetics Theater
Ubu Web (online resource)

Note: Many of these books we'll be reading in their entirety, but from some I'll be making selections (specific selections available at a later time).

Course Description: This advanced level multi-genre course will focus on key works and issues in literature produced within the last 20-25 years. Fiction, poetry, drama, and mixed genre work will be considered. Emphasis will be placed on difficult and inventive works, and on exploring the connections and conflicts between differing narrative, poetic, and dramatic structures (both conventional and non-conventional) and the relationship between literary conventions and cultural context. Students will also be required to attend several public literary readings.

It is strongly suggested that undergraduates taking this course have completed 308b or 309b.

General Reading Schedule

Weeks 1-3: Fiction (Diaz, Di Blasi, Evenson)
Weeks 4-7: Poetry (Levine, Gurlesque, Mayer, Davies)
Weeks 8-9: Drama (Nottage, Toscano)
Weeks 10-12 Mixed Genre Work (Kapil, Ourednik, Electronic Literature and Ubu Web collections)

Catherine Wagner at CSUSM Thursday April 19

Please join us on Thursday, April 19 at 7 p.m. for the final reading of the semester in the Community and World Literary Series at California State University, San Marcos, featuring Catherine Wagner.

The reading will be held on the Cal State San Marcos campus in the Grand Salon (Room 113) of the M. Gordon Clarke Field House. The event is free and open to the public, but there is a fee for on-campus parking.

Catherine Wagner's collections of poems include Macular Hole (2004), Miss America (2001), and many chapbooks, including Imitating (Leafe Press 2004). She performs widely in the US and UK; new poems and essays appeared recently or are forthcoming in Verse, How2, Five Fingers Review, Superflux, Action Yes, Soft Targets, New Review, and other magazines. An anthology of contemporary poetry by mothers she is co-editing, Not for Mothers Only, featuring Rae Armantrout, Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, and Claudia Rankine, among others, will be published by Fence in 2007. She teaches at Miami University in Ohio.

Event Information:

Thursday, April 19, 7 p.m.
Grand Salon (Room 113)
M. Gordon Clarke Field House
California State University, San Marcos
333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Rd.

Campus Maps and Directions: http://www.csusm.edu/resources/images/maps/
For more information, check out our website:
http://www.csusm.edu/cwls/

Reading for April 16

Bernadette Mayer, Midwinter Day, first three sections, 1-55

Comments can be added below.

Juliana Spahr at CSUSM April 5

Please join us on Thursday, April 5 at 7 p.m. for the next reading in the Community and World Literary Series at California State University, San Marcos, featuring Juliana Spahr.

The reading will be held on the Cal State San Marcos campus in the Grand Salon (Room 113) of the M. Gordon Clarke Field House. The event is free and open to the public, but there is a fee for on-campus parking.

Juliana Spahr began writing her most recent book, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (U of California Press, 2005) when she realized that the US would once again begin bombing Iraq. In this series of poems written from November 30, 2002 to March 30, 2003, she mixes lyric conventions with news reports of the deployment to write a series of prose poems that wrap with equal, angular grace around lovers and battleships. The New York Times called This Connection “a poetics of superinformation” and Publishers Weekly called it “innovative, incantatory, politically charged and decidedly accessible.” Spahr’s other recent work includes the essay collection Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), edited with Joan Retallack. She has edited the journal Chain with Jena Osman for the last twelve years and with nineteen other poets she has been an editor of the collectively run and collectively funded Subpress. In addition to writing poetry, she is partial to the short essay format and she self-publishes much of this work; pdfs can be found at people.mills.edu/jspahr.

Event Information:

Thursday, April 5, 7 p.m.
Grand Salon (Room 113)
M. Gordon Clarke Field House
California State University, San Marcos
333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Rd.
Campus Maps and Directions: http://www.csusm.edu/resources/images/maps/

For more information, check out our website:
http://www.csusm.edu/cwls/

Reading for March 26

Lyn Hejinian, My Life, the second half

Comments can be added below.

Reading for March 19

Lyn Hejinian, My Life, the first half.

Comments can be added below.