A COURSE OF ENGLISH CULTURE

ENGL 2793

T/Th 1:00 PM - 2:20 PM
2023-09-06 - 2023-12-18
Brian Mulroney Hall, 101 Lecture
Instructor Dr. Stewart Donovan

Calendar Description
This course surveys the portrayal and influence of English/British culture from pre-historic times Stonehenge et.al. to the present, but instead of the standard linear clock-tick movement, we cover these epochs in asynchronous time.

Course Description
When the British painter, novelist, and time theorist, (Time and Western Man, 1927) Wyndham Lewis declared that the artist was older than the fish he was presaging A Cave of Forgotten Dreams a half century before Werner Herzog would enter one in Chauvet, France. Lewis had in mind Lascaux and Spain’s Altamira, the Paleolithic Cave which Picasso famously emerged from at the turn of the century declaring “In 15,000 years we have invented nothing.” Like Dr. Who in her Tardis, we will visit these ages in an up graded, digitized, H.G. Wells’ time machine and, by observing both the past and the future, we will endeavour to understand the cultural, artistic, political, personal, and cosmic dimensions of what it is like to occupy the “global village” at the beginning of the 6th Mass Extinction; or, in the words of Slavoj Žižek, what it is like to be Living in the End Times. Using the asynchronous time of high modernism in the digital present, students will survey the major vortexes of English/British culture from its beginnings in Stonehenge to contemporary times. The theoretical approach will be from a cultural Marxist perspective (the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School) heavily influenced by post-colonialism, (Fanon, Said, Tariq Ali) and the cinematic and cultural viewpoints of Werner Herzog and Bruce Chatwin. Lawrence of Arabia: Indigenous Bedouins versus the Empires of the Ottomans, the British and the French. 

Evaluation
Thematic essay 10% 1500 words double spaced; due on October19th. Your  thematic essay is a brief survey of the course thus far. Most importantly highlighting your understanding of the thematic continuity of art, culture and politics. 

journal 40%; due on the last day of class.

final exam: in-class essay and short answer 45%; 

class participation 5%

Journal

A more informal style of writing, your journal should record notes from class, conversations with fellow students, family, friends et. al. about the cinema and screen time, and ideas you have been engaging—their cultural, social and political impact. The journal/vlog/blog should also highlight research you have been doing: reading and viewing you will have done in the library or on the net. This is the independent learning section of the course.  You Tube contains a vast amount of material and commentary specifically related to the material and ideology of this course.   Students will also find a vast selection of narrative works on streaming platforms. These can be films, adaptations of novels, plays, poetry or original satire series, like Cunk on Britain.  You will be expected to write reviews and summaries and commentaries on some of  the shows. You should try to write, compose at least two or three entries per week. The length of these entries depends on your writing and presentation skills, but try to avoid point form. Set a goal of one or two pages per week. Remember, the journal is also a writing and communicating exercise. You must try to critique the celebrity culture that has largely been the background of much of your cultural, social and political experience. Even as that celebrity culture finally  and thankfully begins to wane. The final journal is to be sent in by the exam day in December, but students can submit work at any time to see how they are progressing.

Course texts
Most material for the course is available online but there will be a series of handouts, texts and online sites and made available.

Methodology 

Mostly lecture via Keynote—discussion, question and answer.

Lecture Schedule

Education


Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker of Black Mirror): child of modern fame, the internet and social media: Victorian Education gone far right and far left. The class (room) under siege: critical thinking and social change in the age of aggressive ignorance. The ruling-class and social control in the age of disaster capitalism.
Preamble: Empire, class, religion (ritual, the institutional church), ethnicity (slavery), story, song, literacy, satire and science.
A Night at the British Museum: aka, who’s in charge of the Loot? Starring Lord Elgin and his marbles with special appearance by the Benin Bronzes, the Rosetta Stone and countless more.

The Pyramid Scheme: Egypt and the Brits: from Anthony and Cleopatra, to Brendan Fraser, Angelina Jolie (Grendel’s mom) to Lara Croft Tomb Raider.

1 So this is Rome:
I. Titus: Julie Taymor’s adaptation of Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare. War and Fascism: recording the continuity and resurgence.
Micro bursts: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: no Falerian wine here; Classics and the Empire: setting the curriculum. Michael Wood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbUQKyie_w
Centurion; Mary Beard, Meet the Romans; Waldemar Janiuszczak, Roman Art; Sanitizing Caesar: genocide among the Gauls; “What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods!” Shakespeare: Let loose the dogs of war. The Elgin Marbles in White on White; Raiders of the Lost Art: Cleopatra on the Thames or, look what I’ve found. Mathew Arnold and Monty Python on Dover Beach, The Life of Brian: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Decline and Fall: Gibbon and Waugh. Pompeii, Rhodes and the tourist imperative, site visit till you drop, or “there is an audience for this” : extras in real time disaster films aka the Grand Tour on fire and underwater. Henry James goes home. The Selfish Giant: Oscar Wilde's Christian parable in a secular Age. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-selfish-giant-2013 ; https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/27/selfish-giant-clio-barnard-review

2. Waiting for Vikings:

I. Angles, Saxons, and Jutes: Beowulf, The Seafarer, Tolkien, and Mallory.

Microbursts: “Scuse us, chorley guy! You toller-day donsk? You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! ‘Tis a Jute. Let us swop hats and excheck a few strong verbs weak oach eather. . .” from Finnegans Wake, 1939. Translations, roots, versification: alliteration, kennings and the stressed verse of Hopkins’ “The Windhover”. John Boorman’s Excalibur; Robert Eggers, The Northmen, or Hamlet gets an early start. Sutton Hoo, https://youtu.be/-dAPgfW9Qi4; Njorl’s’ Saga.


https://youtu.be/yGayivkcoxs; Stonehenge: Waldemar Janiuszczak https://youtu.be/Q6MVuCHQFiQ; “Channel Firing,” Thomas Hardy. LOTR origins and roots.
3. Marcellus gets Medieval: What is gained and what is lost: the pursuit of Fantasy in the world of late capital from LOTR to Game of Thrones.
I. Chaucer the European. The Canterbury Tales: Knights, Millers, and the Wife of Bath. (The Decameron by Pasolini)

Microbursts: In the wake of the Angevin Empire: Roman de la Rose and the Troubadour influence of the Muslim women of the Alhambra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH7cPKypbDE&t=117s; The Lion in Winter, 1968; The Decameron, 1971, Pasolini; The Holy Grail, 1975, Gilliam and Jones; Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, 1954 and the Black Prince; Robin and Marian,1975, Richard Lister. The Sibyl of the Rhine: The Latin World of Hildegard von Bingen, https://youtu.be/v6qFCYRQKVA “The Wasteland” and English Lit. T. S. Eliot shaking the barrel of the classics. Searching for St. George. Waldemar Janiuszczak https://www.youtube.com/results? Joan of Arc from Ingrid Bergman back to the masterpiece of The Passion of St. Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer. search_query=waldemar+janiuszczak+and+st.+george; Hegemony, the Magna Carta and English Peasants, from the Boar’s Head to the Madding Crowd. In Brughes: tourism, gangsters, religion and Art.

4. The Lion and Fox: Shakespeare from the Tudors to the court of King James.
Courtiers, Conquistadores, Pirates and Spies: Raleigh, Spencer, Wyatt, Surrey, and Marlowe.
I. Microbursts: Michael Wood: In Search of Shakespeare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuM357xdt7g Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell, and the world of Hilary Mantel. The Borgias with Jeremy Irons; Joel Cohen’s Hamlet. Hollywood history: Betty Davis as Elizabeth I; A Man For All Seasons,1966 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_MIECLQ6vU;Anne of a Thousand Days; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhVyG-RZZss;
5. King Charles I to Cromwell: Milton, Marvell, and Donne. T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding.

I. Microbursts: Regicide, Genocide and Ur-Republicans: King Charles I, patron of the arts and the bringer of the Baroque to Britain www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1r2hsj6etA; Richard Harris as Cromwell; Micháel Ó’Siochrú, God’s Executioner, 2008. Wolf -Walkers Tom Moore. The Puritans arrive in America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58BDrZH7SX8;
The colony of Canada:
“First, Aboriginals were not poorer, did not eat less well or live roughly when compared to the newcomers. They considered the newcomers poorer in part because they dressed so inappropriately and ate so badly that they died of scurvy or lost their teeth, then hair. And part of this had to do with the great class differentiations in European civilization. Aboriginals considered any society that was intentionally so unfair to so many to be inferior. That someone would insist on eating in a particular way because it was appropriate to their class even if it was bad for their teeth, or be obliged to dress a certain way by others because of class, was a sign of limited intelligence. The idea of egalitarianism that we have today is far closer to that of the seventeenth-or eighteenth-century First Nations than it is to that of the newcomers of that period. And if this were untrue, why did both colonial armies have a problem with men deserting to the Aboriginals? These men escaped to a world in which they ate better, lived in greater comfort, were healthier in the winter and were cleaner. And if the Aboriginal civilization was not attractive, how did we all together come to create a whole new race—the Métis—in such a short period of time? Tied to such basic realities is the concept of exploration. The newcomers did not discover the interior of Canada. They were shown it, thanks to alliances, treaties and commercial agreements. And most of it was shown to them by canoe. Writer John Jennings has demonstrated that Canada is the only country invested in by the Europeans in which the local means of transport and much of the way of life was maintained. Everywhere else the Europeans introduced their own boats, carriages or horses. The wheel was one of those strategic tools of conquest and occupation pretty well everywhere, except in Canada. The canoe in all its forms and sizes, sometimes slightly altered for specific purposes, was to be used as our principal means of transport—personal, governmental, military and commercial—for several centuries. Why? Because the First Nations had developed the appropriate means of transport for our road system, that is, our rivers and lakes. It wasn’t until the middle of the nineteenth century that we seriously set about developing metallic rivers—railway tracks. Even these could take you only so far. It was thanks to the canoe and to the First Nations that, in moving across the country through the waters, we became a financially viable society. The fur trade was our first source of wealth. It set the pattern for an endless sequence of raw materials upon which we are still dependent. Farming for a long time was the poorest of options until we began to develop hardy crops. If this enormous space was shaped and held back long enough from the manifest destiny of our neighbour to evolve into a country, it was largely thanks to Aboriginal alliances and Métis prowess. It was the Maliseet-Acadian alliance that held the New Englanders at bay for decades, long enough to produce the unintended result that there was a place to which Loyalists could come in the 1780s. It was the Métis and the Cree, among others, who held the prairies to a latitude not far off our Canadian border. The new country appropriated and solidified that line. The First Nations were central to holding the borders of Ontario and Quebec. The most famous turning point in ensuring the long-term existence of what would become Canada was probably the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1812. A surprise invasion across the Niagara River gave the U.S. troops a key strategic position. Had they held on to the Heights long enough for reinforcements to join them—one night would have been sufficient—their advantage would have made it difficult for the divided Canadian forces to reverse. It was John Norton, Joseph Brant’s successor, commanding a coalition of Aboriginal forces dominated by the Six Nations from the Grand River, who led a guerrilla-style attack, destabilized the U.S. position and so turned the battle. The simple question is this: How many times did the First Nations or the Métis defend, save or help save the space that would become Canada?”— A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada by John Ralston Saul Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) Zacharias Kunuk.
6. High literacy, the stage, and the birth of the novel: Fielding, Aphra Benn, and the Restoration. The reading public, or how to make a million dollars: Alexander Pope’s translations of Homer; Samuel Johnson, sanitized abolitionist.
I. Microbursts: Becoming Britain: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, 2005; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUaVwol-LBw; Gulliver’s Travels; Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones; Daniel Defoe in the stocks; Samuel Johnson, abolitionist; James Boswell: sympathy for the devil: ‘“Here’s to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies,” Samuel Johnson once toasted at an Oxford dinner party, or so James Boswell claims. The veracity of Boswell’s biography—including its representation of Johnson’s position on slavery—has long been contested. In the course of more than a thousand pages, little mention is made of Johnson’s long-term servant, Francis Barber, who came into the writer’s house as a child after being taken to London from the Jamaican sugar plantation where he was born into slavery. Some of the surviving pages of Johnson’s notes for his famous dictionary have Barber’s handwriting on the back; there are scraps on which a twelve-year-old Barber practiced his own name while learning to write. Thirty years later, Johnson died and left Barber a sizable inheritance. But Boswell repeatedly minimizes Johnson’s abiding opposition to slavery—even that startling toast is characterized as an attempt to offend Johnson’s “grave” dinner companions rather than as genuine support for the enslaved. Boswell was in favor of slavery, and James Basker, a literary historian at Barnard College, has suggested that this stance tainted his depiction of Johnson’s abolitionism, especially since Boswell’s book appeared around the time that the British Parliament was voting on whether to end England’s participation in the international slave trade.’—Casey Cep.

7. The Romantic Movement and the Rejection of Progress: John Ralston Saul: A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008); Bruce Chatwin: The Songlines and Werner Herzog’s Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/werner-herzog-interview-on-bruce-chatwin-film-nomad Bruce Chatwin adapted a literary form common until the eighteenth century though rare in ours; a story of ideas in which two companions, traveling and talking together, explore the hopes and dreams that animate both them and the people they encounter. Set in almost uninhabitable regions of Central Australia, The Songlines asks and tries to answer these questions: Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the world as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it? Why have the great teachers—Christ or the Buddha—recommended the Road as the way to salvation? Do we agree with Pascal that all man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room

Films and Streaming
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Barbarian Invasion