CWL 441: Global Conrad and the Fictions of Autobiography The main objective of this course is spectacular confabulator of his own letters, prefaces and postscripts, to examine the ways in which the life story, frequently interpolating and other documents from the vast fictions in Joseph Conrad’s glamorous or tragic elements into Conradian archive, in addition to autobiographical texts work to his biography. While some of these several short tales and a novel, we complicate the reading experience, adjustments were relatively minor will seek to establish a concrete offering glimpses into the (selling guns to pirates), others portrait of the man (in all his dynamics of the autobiographic were fundamental (fake suicide plurality and ambivalence) and his genre as a constant struggle attempt); yet none in any way times (in all their turbulence). between strategies of self- diminish his importance as a public concealment and self-revelation. intellectual who sought to make Main readings: Conrad, who famously wrote that readers “see the truth,” his two • Joseph Conrad, Typhoon and the job of an author is to “make you decades sailing under the British Other Tales (1902; Oxford UP, see… the Ensign, the dynamics of his 2002). Includes “Amy Foster” and truth” assimilation in adoptive England, or “An Outpost of Progress;” also: was a his complex and sometimes “The Secret Sharer,” “Poland tumultuous relationship with the Revisited,” and “Congo Diary.” reading public. • Joseph Conrad, Under Western Once we have examined Eyes (1911; Penguin, 1989). critical writings that elaborate a theory of autobiography, Requirements: our second engagement will Two response papers, a term be with the logics and forces of paper, and a midterm in-class global empire. As a Polish essay. No final exam. country-less émigré whose homeland had been ripped apart by imperial powers, and who then spent two decades serving British imperial interests as a merchant mariner and FALL 2020 eventually as shipmaster, perhaps T/Th 11:00 AM-12:20 PM Conrad needed to tell a Online via Zoom CRN: 56141 few tall tales to Professor George Gasyna himself to get [email protected] through Office hours: Th, 1:00 pm-3:00 pm the day. by Zoom appointment As we scrutinize various .