Lisa Mendelman / Sample Syllabi / 1
The following courses are hypothetical; syllabi for my recent UCLA classes can be
accessed on the teaching page of my website.
All courses are designed to be semester-length; reading lists in order of course reading;
following the first example, assignment descriptions omitted for brevity.
Affect and the American Novel
Upper-division undergraduate seminar
How do words on paper translate to feeling off the page? How do different writers
depict feeling in their characters and attempt to inspire visceral responses in their
readers? How do different feelings manifest themselves in the same text? How do
different readers feel about the same text? How, for example, do contemporary readers
react to a novel written before the Civil War? How might this differ from the way
contemporaneous readers responded to this text?
This course will consider these questions and more as it traces representations of
feeling in American novels written over the past three centuries. As we discuss these
novels and the evolving cultural sensibilities and artistic priorities they reflect, we will
pay special attention to how these works engage transforming understandings of feeling.
We will also read choice works of non-fiction, spanning from the advent of New
Psychology in the late 1800s to recent literary criticism and research in cognitive
neuroscience (which, incidentally, corroborates certain earlier theories of how feeling
works in the brain).
As we think through questions of emotional difference and similarity, we will
examine how these novels distinguish feeling by gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality,
and nationality, as well as how they interrogate conceptions of difference. We will also
contemplate the slippery yet meaningful distinctions between words like “feeling,”
“emotion,” “sensation,” and “affect,” as well as distinctions between words we use to
describe emotional qualities and feeling-states (e.g., “love,” “affection,” “intimacy,” and
“compassion”; “disdain,” “disgust,” “horror,” and “hatred”). As we talk about words and
feelings, we will dwell most often on the links and leaps between the two, as well as how
these associations, expectations, and assumptions change over time.
Reading list
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)
Gertrude Stein, Three Lives (1909)
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925)
William Faulkner, Light in August (1932)
Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945)
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (1985)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2002)
Assignments and grading
Paper One (4-5 pages) 15%
Paper Two (4-5 pages) 15%
Mendelman / Sample Syllabi / 2
Paper Three (5-7 pages) 30%
Classwork 20%
Participation 20%
Papers
The details of each paper will be discussed as the dates approach. The first and
second paper will be on a novel of your choice; the third paper must put at least two
course texts into conversation with one another. Other than that, the topics are open;
we’ll talk further about asking productive questions in class, and I will look forward to
helping you develop compelling prompts based on your own interests. All three essays
must include a well-formulated, argumentative, focused thesis and ample, pertinent
textual support. They should also be typed, double-spaced, and MLA-formatted with a
proper heading and a Works Cited.
Classwork
The course assignments include regular reading, weekly homework assignments,
and one brief (4-5 minute) presentation on a course text. In the event that I suspect that
the course reading is being neglected, I reserve the right to give pop quizzes.
The homework assignments will focus on some of the necessary components of
essay writing (crafting thesis statements, finding and using textual support) and will
provide the foundation of your papers. We will work with these assignments in class on
their due dates, so, in order to receive full credit, assignments must be typed and in hard
copy at the beginning of class. Late homework will not receive credit, but you must
complete all class requirements to pass the course.
The presentation will be assigned on the first day of class. Each student will be
responsible for presenting on one course text; you may choose to work alone or with the
other students assigned to the same day. You may also choose how to structure your
presentation, and whether it focuses on the assigned fiction or scholarly work. You will
not be expected to present thoroughly digested answers or seamless arguments, but
rather to raise a series of thought provoking questions that will initiate seminar
discussion for the day.
Participation
The success of our seminar depends upon the active participation of every
student. I will not keep track of the number of times you raise your hand; I will attend to
the evidence that you actively engage with the material, share your insights and
questions with the class, and incorporate these thoughts as well as my feedback into your
writing assignments. (Although there is not a separate grade for attendance, obviously, if
you are not present, you cannot participate.) I will also require you to meet with me
outside of class at least once over the course of the semester, at least one week before the
final paper is due.
Mendelman / Sample Syllabi / 3
American Mental Health
Undergraduate seminar
What does it mean to be psychologically healthy? How have notions of normal
consciousness and aberrant mental states changed over the past century? How do these
distinctions intersect with constructions of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity across
the same time period? This seminar will consider evolving concepts of cognition,
wellness, and pathology in twentieth- and twenty-first-century America. These years
have seen tremendous change in the science as well as popular understandings of mental
health. We will think about each of these conceptual fields, and about the frequent
discord that exists both within and across different frameworks of normality and
disorder.
To think about these cross-disciplinary dynamics, we will pair works of fiction
(novels, short stories, plays, films) with works of non-fiction from fields like psychology,
psychiatry, psychoanalysis, cognitive neuroscience, and law and government. We will
dwell especially on the resonance and divergence between the models of health and
illness developed by these texts. We will also look at some of the watershed moments in
the theorization and standardization of American mental health from the past century: a
meeting of the minds in New Psychology at Clark University in 1909, the publication of
the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1952, and the
ascendance of neuroimaging techniques like fMRI in the early 1990s. We will think about
the historical and cultural contexts of each of these moments and consider their social
and political implications. Throughout, we will consider the promises and perils of
psychological diagnosis and of interpreting human minds—others’ and our own.
Reading list
(In order of course reading)
Stanley Hall, excerpt from Adolescence (1904)
Willa Cather, “Paul’s Case” (1905)
Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920, trans. 1922)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Bill Wilson, excerpt from Alcoholics Anonymous (1939)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night (1934)
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944)
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Excerpt from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
Jonathan Metzl, excerpt from The Protest Psychosis (2010)
“The Mental Health Study Act” (1955)
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970)
Oliver Sacks, excerpt from The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (1985)
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (1985)
David Foster Wallace, “The Depressed Person” (1998)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
Kay Redfield Jamison, excerpt from Nothing Was the Same (2009)
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
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20th-Century American Literature
Undergraduate survey course
This course has two parallel goals: to explore major aesthetic trends in twentiethcentury American literature and to consider the stories this literature tells about
American identity. With both of these goals in mind, we will discuss the historical
contexts, watershed events, and artistic movements that inform this literature. We will
contemplate how these works locate themselves in a distinct tradition of American
letters as well as how they interrogate and rewrite this inheritance. We will analyze the
narratives these works construct about individual and national identity, and the
criticisms frequently embedded in these stories. We will trace evolving attitudes towards
gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and socioeconomics, and examine notions of political
activity at home and abroad. Our study will thus contemplate the intertwined literary
and cultural histories of twentieth-century America and participate in an ongoing
dialogue about this past.
Reading list
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
Gertrude Stein, “Melanctha” (1909)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay, selected poems (1920-38)
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” (1930)
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1955)
Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1952)
Poetry at midcentury: Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and Sylvia Plath, selected poems
(1956-65)
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970)
Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985)
Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now” (1986)
Art Spiegelman, Maus (1991)
Sherman Alexie, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (1993)
David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” (1993)
———. “Girl With Curious Hair” (1993)
Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain” (1997)
Jhumpa Lahiri, “Interpreter of Maladies” (1999)
Assignments and grading
Paper One (4-5 pages) 15%
Paper Two (6-8 pages) 25%
Final exam 25%
Classwork 15%
Participation 20%
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American Fiction: 1900 to World War II
Undergraduate survey course
This course explores major aesthetic trends in American literature from 1900 to
World War II. We will discuss the social, political, and cultural contexts as well as the
evolving artistic interests that inform this literature. We will also think about the
remarkable hold this period exerts on our national consciousness—recent examples
include a cinematic interpretation of The Great Gatsby (2013), Woody Allen’s Midnight
in Paris (2011), the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014), and the national
traveling exhibit of “The Steins Collect” (an impressive body of modern art collected by
Gertrude and her brothers). What is it about this era that we find so fascinating? Why
now? And how do popular national fantasies about these years differ from what we know
about the period?
Reading list
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
Gertrude Stein, “Melanctha” (1909)
Edith Maude Eaton (Sui Sin Far), Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912) - excerpts
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919) - excerpts
Willa Cather, One of Ours (1922)
Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)
Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (1925) - excerpts
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925)
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1930)
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locusts (1939)
Assignments and grading
Paper One (4-5 pages) 25%
Midterm exam 25%
Paper Two (6-8 pages) 25%
Classwork 15%
Participation 10%
Mendelman / Sample Syllabi / 6
Affect and the American Novel
Graduate seminar
This course will consider the ongoing critical interest in literary representations
of feeling. We will read American novels alongside recent works of literary and cultural
theory. This body of work is often referred to as “affect theory”—a categorization we will
think through, along with related terms like “feeling,” “emotion,” and “sensation.” How
do these concepts of human experience intersect with literary and cultural studies? What
can literature tell us about feeling (or affect), and vice versa? What might we observe
about this recent critical phenomenon as a mode of political as well as aesthetic inquiry?
Reading list
(Read as paired)
W. K. Wimsatt, Jr. and M. C. Beardsley, “The Affective Fallacy” (1949)
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, Or, You’re So
Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You” (2003)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Lauren Berlant, introduction and “Poor Eliza” from The Female Complaint (2008)
Gertrude Stein, Three Lives (1909)
Heather Love, “Emotional Rescue: The Demands of Queer History” in Feeling Backward
(2007)
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925)
Sara Ahmed, “Happy Affects” in The Affect Theory Reader (2010)
Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945)
Sianne Ngai, “Envy” in Ugly Feelings (2005)
Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero (1985)
Pansy Duncan, “Taking the Smooth with the Rough: Texture, Emotion, and the Other
Postmodernism” (2014)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
Jose Esteban Munoz, “Feeling Brown, Feeling Down” (2006)
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2002)
Lauren Berlant, introduction to Cruel Optimism (2011)
Ruth Leys; William E. Connolly; Adam Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson; Charles Altieri,
“Affect: An Exchange” (2011-2012 in Critical Inquiry)
Assignments and grading
First paper (4-6 pages) 20%
Final paper (15-20 pages) 40%
Presentation 20%
Participation 20%
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American Spectacles: Visions of the Nation in Print and Film
Undergraduate lecture course, potentially cross-listed in English and Film/Media
Studies
This course examines narratives of individual, regional, and national identity in
late nineteenth to twenty-first-century America, as indexed in print and film. How do
different texts “see” this country? How do their projected visions of America grapple with
the past as well as register the present? How do their creative formats evolve in dialogue
with historical, political, and social contexts? In what ways do these media
commemorate others’ experience as well as document the artists’ own? And why do they
engage mixed modes to narrate these stories and capture these perspectives?
These and other questions of time, perspective, vision, and revision will inform
our readings of cultural forms from the past century and a half. While temporal gaps may
have narrowed in the age of Twitter and Instagram, anxieties of belatedness and
chronology have hardly waned (c.f., FOMO, or fear of missing out, an acronym whose
very brevity articulates the urgency and frequency of this experience). How might we
contextualize and interpret our current cultural obsessions with time, place, and
personal point of view? As we contemplate these questions of artistic form and historical
context, we will pay particular attention to how different artists imagine factors like sex,
gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomics, religion, local environment, and
technology inflect national as well as individual identity.
Reading list
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890)
D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Djuna Barnes, The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)
John dos Passos, 1919 (1932)
James Agee & Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)
James Baldwin & Richard Avedon, Nothing Personal (1964)
E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime (1975)
John Milius, Red Dawn (1984)
Philip Roth, American Pastoral (1997)
Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog (2001)
Assignments and grading
Paper one (4-6 pages) 15%
Midterm exam 20%
Paper two (4-6 pages) 20%
Final project 25%
Participation 20%
The final project will be an analysis of American identity as reflected in a medium of your
choice—a building, a photograph, a website, a more traditional literary text, or
something else entirely. The research project can take the form of a standard research
paper, a website, a short film, or some other (approved) creative format. It can be
collaborative or single author and must have an argumentative thesis as well as ample
evidence.