Expos 20: The Rise of Pop

Fall 2014 Barker 133, MW 10:00 & 11:00 Kevin Birmingham (birmingh@fas) Expos Office: 1 Bow Street #223 Office Hours: Mondays 12:15-2

The idea that there is a hierarchy of art forms – that some styles, genres and media are superior to others – extends at least as far back as Aristotle. Aesthetic categories have always been difficult to maintain, but they have been particularly fluid during the past fifty years in the . What does it mean to undercut the prestige of high art with popular culture? What happens to art and society when the boundaries separating high and low art are gone – when Proust and Porky Pig rub shoulders and the museum resembles the supermarket? This course examines fiction, painting and film during a roughly ten-year period (1964-1975) in which reigning cultural hierarchies disintegrated and older terms like “high culture” and “mass culture” began to lose their meaning. In the first unit, we will approach the death of the high art novel in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, which disrupts notions of literature through a superficial suburban American landscape and through the form of the novel itself. The second unit turns to Andy and Pop Art, which critics consider either an American avant-garde movement undermining high art or an unabashed celebration of vacuous consumer culture. In the third unit, we will turn our attention to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the rise of cult films in the 1970s. Throughout the semester, we will engage art criticism, philosophy and sociology to help us make sense of important concepts that bear upon the status of art in modern society: tradition, craftsmanship, community, allusion, protest, authority and aura.

Readings (Available at the Harvard Coop): Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. Harper Perennial. and Pat Hackettt, : The Warhol Sixties. Harcourt, Inc. Shorter Readings will be handed out in class throughout the semester. Copies of The Rocky Horror Picture Show are on reserve at Lamont. We will also have a screening of Rocky Horror (attendance required), time and location TBA.

Papers Over the course of the semester you will draft and revise three essays. Each unit will focus on developing a particular writing skill. In the first unit, you will learn the mechanics of close reading and how to use evidence in a paper. In the second unit, you will enter into a critical debate and learn how to use secondary sources in order to craft a sharp thesis statement. In the third unit, you will focus on applying theories to texts while building on the skills of the previous two units.

Participation Attendance and participation are crucial. Please finish all reading and assignments on time so that you are prepared for class and ready to contribute to our scintillating discussion of schlock. We will begin roughly 8 minutes after the hour (welcome to Harvard!), so please be on time. If you cannot make it to class, please send me an email. Two unexcused absences will be detrimental to your participation grade, and Expos policy requires that we notify your dean.

NOTE: This is a class about Pop, but the readings for this course are not easy. If you are uncomfortable with challenging readings, you should sign up for other courses. An unannounced reading quiz may be given at my discretion.

Conferences I will meet with each of you individually for 20 minutes after you submit each essay draft. We will discuss the status of your work and what revisions will improve your paper before the final version is due. Conferences will take place over three days, and your revised essay will be due six days after your conference. Please arrive for your conference on time. Another student is following your time slot immediately, so lateness will only result in less sage advice from Your Faithful Preceptor.

Workshops Some of the work you produce for this course will be read by the rest of the members in the seminar. Don’t panic! We’re all in the same boat, and the purpose of these workshops is for you to have constructive advice from your peers and for you to see how other students write and solve composition problems.

Grading Only the final version of each essay will be graded. But timely submission of drafts and reading responses will be a part of your class participation grade.

Grade Distribution: Essay 1: (4-5 pages): 20% Essay 2: (6-7 pages): 25% Essay 3: (8-9 pages): 35% Class Participation: 20%

Pop Policies

No laptops Forget google. Forget the Interwebs. Bring Notebooks.

Submitting Work Submit all work (reading responses, essay drafts and essay revisions) on our course website dropbox. You will find the website on the “courses” tab when you log onto my.harvard.edu. • Late work: Late submissions will received a deduction of one grade of each day. Note: a failed upload or email transmission is not an acceptable excuse. • Extensions: One extension during the semester on either an assignment, draft or revision is possible, though not guaranteed. Late work will also be accepted with a letter from the Freshman Dean’s Office or UHS. • Paper formatting: Use a standard 12-point font (Times New Roman, Garamond, Book Antiqua), double-spaced, one-inch margins. Number pages and paragraphs.

Get Enough Sleep Seriously.

Important Due Dates Essay 1 Draft: Sept. 26 Essay 1 Revision: Oct. 5-7 (six days after your conference) Essay 2 Draft: Oct. 24 Essay 2 Revision: Nov. 2-4 Essay 3 Draft: Nov. 21 Essay 3 Revision: Dec. 9

Harvard College Writing Program Policy on Attendance Because Expos has a shorter semester and fewer class hours than other courses, and because instruction in Expos proceeds by sequential writing activities, your consistent attendance is essential. If you are absent without medical excuse more than twice, you are eligible to be officially excluded from the course and given a failing grade. On the occasion of your second unexcused absence, you will receive a letter warning you of your situation. This letter will also be sent to your Resident Dean, so the College can give you whatever supervision and support you need to complete the course. Apart from religious holidays, only medical absences can be excused. In the case of a medical problem, you should contact your preceptor before the class to explain, but in any event within 24 hours: otherwise you will be required to provide a note from UHS or another medical official, or your Resident Dean. Absences because of special events such as athletic meets, debates, conferences, and concerts are not excusable absences. If such an event is very important to you, you may decide to take one of your two allowable unexcused absences; but again, you are expected to contact your preceptor beforehand if you will miss a class, or at least within 24 hours. If you wish to attend an event that will put you over the two-absence limit, you should contact your Resident Dean and you must directly petition the Expository Writing Senior Preceptor, who will grant such petitions only in extraordinary circumstances and only when your work in the class has been exemplary.

Harvard College Writing Program Policy on Completion of Work Because your Expos course is a planned sequence of writing, you must write all of the assigned essays to pass the course, and you must write them within the schedule of the course—not in the last few days of the semester after you have fallen behind. You will receive a letter reminding you of these requirements, therefore, if you fail to submit at least a substantial draft of an essay by the final due date in that essay unit. The letter will also specify the new date by which you must submit the late work, and be copied to your Resident Dean. If you fail to submit at least a substantial draft of the essay by this new date, and you have not documented a medical problem, you are eligible to be officially excluded from the course and given a failing grade.

You will submit at least some of your work electronically this semester. As you send or upload each document, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have saved the document as a Word file (or in a form compatible with Word). It is also your responsibility to ensure that the file you send is not corrupted or damaged. If I cannot open or read the file you have sent, the essay will be subject to a late penalty.

Policy on Academic Integrity In this Expository Writing course, we’ll study many features of academic argument that will help you to understand how scholars use sources and distinguish their own ideas from those of other scholars. You’ll learn to accurately quote, paraphrase and cite source, to assess their validity and usefulness to your own thinking, to use some kinds of sources as evidence that you’ll analyze and argue about, and other kinds of sources as a theoretical foundation or counterargument to extend or deepen your own ideas about a subject. You will learn why it is crucial to the academic enterprise that we all clearly distinguish our own work from that of our sources, and you will learn at least one of the citation methods by which scholars acknowledge their sources.

Please also pay particular attention to the following statement from the Harvard College Policy on Academic Dishonesty (excerpted from the Student Handbook): “All homework assignments, projects, lab reports, papers and examinations submitted to a course are expected to be the student's own work. Students should always take great care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from information derived from sources. The term "sources" includes not only primary and secondary material published in print or on-line, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people. The responsibility for learning the proper forms of citation lies with the individual student. Quotations must be placed properly within quotation marks and must be cited fully. In addition, all paraphrased material must be acknowledged completely. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student's reading and research or from a student's own writings, the sources must be indicated.” And: “Students are expected to be familiar with the booklet Writing with Sources, which they receive at the writing placement test in September of freshman year . . . . Students who are in any doubt about the preparation of academic work should consult their instructor and Allston Burr Resident Dean or Resident Dean for Freshmen before the work is prepared or submitted. Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, and ordinarily required to withdraw from the College.”

Unit 1 Assignment: Welcome to the Cultural Supermarket Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 Sources: Kirchner, Porky Pig, The Beatles (pre-’64), Los Angeles, Rilke, etc. Secondary Reading: Clement Greenberg, “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”

Response Paper: The Devil in the Details (due Thursday, Sept. 18 before midnight) The premise of any close reading is that every word counts. Think of it this way: each image, sentence, phrase and word in a text has been chosen by the author to the exclusion of all other possibilities. Your job as a close reader is to explain why.

The essay for unit one requires you to do a close reading of a passage, a reading that trains attention on specific details. One of the most important aspects of close reading, however, is the ability to use specific details within a passage to establish the significance of those details within the entire text.

1. Select a passage of no more than four pages (and no less than four sentences) from The Crying of Lot 49. Choose a moment in the text that you find interesting or puzzling – not something about which you have an immediate and clear response. This passage should be the centerpiece of your first essay, so you are effectively choosing your essay topic. My advice (now and forever): choose something you love. The best work derives from material that can sustain your interest during the several hours it will take you to complete the paper.

2. Find three to five interesting or unusual details in your passage and, in two or three sentences, consider each detail’s significance within the passage by drawing on some of the techniques and distinctions we have covered in class. The details you choose may involve syntax, diction, images, metaphors, and even single words (but, for this assignment, do not select proper names – we all know “Mike Fallopian” is an unusual, provocative element). When thinking of significance, consider how else the detail could have been presented – what other words, metaphors and images Pynchon might have used – and what effect Pynchon’s specific choices have. For example, the last sentence of the novel’s first paragraph is: “You’re so sick, Oedipa, she told herself, or the room, which knew.” One of the things that interests me here is how quickly the comedy (Oedipa pointlessly talks to the room) sinks into something ominous (the room already “knew.”)

3. In a short paragraph, explain how one of your details has significance outside of the passage. How does it resemble, amplify, revise or reverse other passages in the novel? Keep in mind that the significance of your detail should involve more than just basic plot development. That is, you should say more than, “In this passage we see the same muted postal horn that appears on pages 23, 47 and 108.” If you choose a repetition of detail, be sure to clarify how this iteration affects the others. For example, “the room” already knows Oedipa is sick. This is just the first of many inanimate objects in Lot 49 that hold knowledge (mattresses, used , etc.).

Essay 1: Close Reading (4-5 pages) Draft Due: Sept. 26 before 5:00 p.m. (submit to the course website) A close reading of a text is the foundation of any systematic discussion. In a short essay (4-5 pages) explain the significance of both the form and the content of a passage in The Crying of Lot 49. What is the significance of the details and the way those details are presented? How does this specific moment help to create a textual pattern or illuminate larger meanings? Using some of the close reading skills we have developed during this unit, select a passage of no more than four pages from The Crying of Lot 49 (preferably, though not necessarily, the passage you examined in your reading response) and explain the significance of its syntax, diction, tone, imagery and/or literary devices. What can you tell us that readers may not have noticed at first? In other words, why is your passage important? Why is it worth our time? While your paper should focus on your selected passage, you may also consider its significance within the novel as a whole, though this is entirely optional

Submit a cover letter along with your first draft (one or two single-spaced paragraphs) in which you evaluate your own work. What do you like about your essay? What was troublesome or unclear? What needs improvement? Which ideas would you like to expand or eliminate for your final draft? We will discuss these issues during your post-draft conference.

Unit 2 Overview: Pop Art: “…Whatever You Can Get Away With” Images from Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselmann, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg

Readings: Pop Art Critics Alan Solomon, “The New Art” Sidney Tillim, “Further Observations on the Pop Phenomenon” Peter Selz, “The Flaccid Art” John Canaday, “Pop Art Sells On and On – Why?”

Artist Statements Andy Warhol, POPism, 1960-1963, 1965 Claes Oldenburg, “Statement” (“‘I am for an Art…’ Manifesto,”)

Theorists Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry Reconsidered”

Unit 3 Overview: Let There Be Lips! The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Readings: Kinkade and Katovich, “Toward a Sociology of Cult Films: Reading ‘Rocky Horror’” J. P. Telotte, “Beyond All Reason: The Nature of the Cult” Jeffrey Sconce, “‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style” Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp” Daniel Bell, “From the Protestant Ethic to the Psychedelic Bazaar” Mikhail Bakhtin, from the Introduction to Rabelais and His World