Topics for Paper One

English 192
Summer 2013
Due Thursday 22 August 2013 at 5:00 p.m.

Turn in a typed paper of three to five pages on one of the topics below. You are also welcome to write on another topic that you develop, provided that you discuss the topic with me and that I approve it no later than Monday 19 August. If you write on one of the topics below, you do not need to seek my approval before doing so, but are (of course!) still welcome to discuss your paper with me. It is not necessary to have a fully formed outline in order to propose an alternate topic — I am happy to make suggestions based on general ideas.

Your paper should consist of a close reading of the text(s) with which you are engaging and an argument based on that reading. Your paper is due at the beginning of lecture on Thursday 22 August 2013. This paper is worth 25% of your total grade for the term.

Your paper should properly attribute words and ideas belonging to others, be double-spaced, have one-inch margins, and in all other ways conform to the MLA standard for academic papers in the humanities. If your word processor does not conform to the MLA standard by default, it is your job to override your word processor's defaults in order to produce a correctly formatted paper. The degree to which you conform to the conventions of formal academic writing will also be a strong factor in your grade. A more detailed description of my grading criteria can be found at http://is.gd/winucu, or from the course website.

Any instance of plagiarism will result in removal from the course and referral to the University's student conduct committee.

I take my pedagogical responsibilities seriously, and want to help each and every one of you to be successful in all course-related tasks. You are welcome to discuss your ideas for your paper at any stage in conceptualizing or writing it; to ask for assistance in evaluating your own rhetorical, analytical, or expository strategies; or to think through difficulties in your analysis during my office hours. If my office hours are at inconvenient or impossible times for you, let me know and we will arrange another time to meet.

  1. Both the Sealanders in Wyndham's The Chrysalids and Alquist in R.U.R. have specific beliefs about the way that "life" operates as a metaphysical force. Choosing one of these texts, explain what the nature of this metaphysical force is and how it operates in the text in question. What is this concept of "life," exactly, and to what does the structure of that text oppose it? What does this opposition accomplish for the larger narrative goals of your chosen text?
  2. Look at the robots that appear in one or more of the texts in which they have appeared so far in the term — Ash in Alien, many of the characters in R.U.R., and/or the firefighters or house-cleaning and -maintenance devices in There Will Come Soft Rains. What is missing from these robots that is missing from our traditional understanding of "humans"? How do these robots throw our understanding of "the human" into relief by removing elements that we traditionally associate with that idea?
  3. Keeping in mind our provisional interpretive presumption that horror arises from the transgression of implicit cognitive boundaries (as discussed in lectures 3 and 4), examine several of the specific rhetorical maneuvers that Lovecraft engages in in The Shadow over Innsmouth. How do these maneuvers produce the effect of horror in his readers? What implicit cognitive boundaries are being violated? What purposes does this violation accomplish in relation to the other large-scale concerns of novella?
  4. In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell claims that the English language […] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts (128). Taking into account Orwell's claim about the connection between the form of language and the kinds of thoughts that it allows the subjects using it to have, discuss the development of robot consciousness in R.U.R. by picking, from at least three of the four major divisions of the play, one interaction between a robot and another character. What, ultimately, do the passages you've chosen say about the development of identity and meaning for the robots?
  5. One rhetorical technique commonly used by science fiction authors is defamiliarization, the presentation of familiar things in a way that strips them of their familiarity. Identify and select a small number of instances where common objects or situations are defamiliarized in Wyndham's The Chrysalids, provide a close reading of these passages, and explain how these defamiliarizing moves are related to the larger structure of the novel.
  6. By providing a specific "reading" of lighting in scenes of Alien, examine the way in which lighting is used as a visual effect in the film. What associations are present between lighting and knowledge, wisdom, understanding, or some other intellectual and/or moral virtue? What, ultimately, does the film say by using lighting in the ways that you have identified?