21ST CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

First Semester 2024

Professor: Paul Tewkesbury (Tater)

E-Mail: tater.t@gmail.com
Mobile Phone: 010 7418 5366
KakaoTalk ID: T8er
Office Hours: I am available immediately before and after our class. I am also
available by appointment. Please send me a message if you want to
make an appointment to meet with me.

You may contact me by email, SMS, KakaoTalk, or telephone at any time. In fact, I
encourage you to ask me questions outside of class if you do not understand something.
However, please identify yourself by name and course in any correspondence with me.

COURSE PURPOSE

Using Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2010 work A Visit from the Goon Squad as the
required reading, students will identify key features of 21st century American fiction. With
stories that take place between the 1970s and the near future, A Visit from the Goon Squad
straddles two centuries—indeed, two millennia—and encourages readers to look for both
continuity and change over time. On the one hand, A Visit from the Goon Squad engages
many of the same issues that previous 20th century American fiction did: the alienation of the
individual, the connection between the past and the present, the relationship between time
and memory, and rapid societal transformation, including changing technology. On the other
hand, A Visit from the Goon Squad is distinctly 21st century, as many of the characters search
for meaning in a post-9/11, pop culture-obsessed, social media-driven world that values
youth and fame above all else. As we study Egan’s thematic interests throughout the
semester, we will also analyze the ways in which her formal choices—such as structure, point
of view, and genre—relate to her themes.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK

I will be using the 2011 Anchor Books (a division of Random House) paperback edition of A
Visit from the Goon Squad in this class. I encourage you to order a copy of this edition online
because all page references that I make in class will be to this edition. Alternatively, a
photocopy of this edition will be available from the copy shop on the first floor of the Social
Sciences Building (Building #3). An electronic version of this edition is also available, and,
of course, there are many other print and electronic editions readily available. Regardless,
you must bring the text to every class. If you do not have the novel with you in class, the
attendance and participation component of your grade will be affected.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING

Below are the class assignments and their percentage of your final grade:

Assignment Percentage
Written responses to assignments 40%
Midterm exam (Wednesday, April 24) 25%
Final exam (Wednesday, June 19) 25%
Attendance and participation 10%
Total 100%

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Please start taking your grades seriously now, especially if you need a specific grade. If you
do not understand why you have received a grade on an assignment, talk to me and I will be
happy to review it with you.

Do not, under any circumstances, contact me in June after I have entered final grades and ask
me to change your grade for the class. I never change students’ grades.

Written Responses to Readings

Four times this semester you will respond in writing to one of two prompts about a required
reading. Your responses must be 250-300 words (a long paragraph, about 1 word-processed
page, double spaced, in size 12 Times New Roman font). These responses are NOT essays.

Your responses will be graded according to the following criteria:

• Adherence to assignment guidelines (such as word count and formatting)
• Familiarity with the work and evidence of engagement with it
• Clearly and directly stated position supported with evidence from work
• Complete sentences
• Correct spelling of textual details (such as character names)
• Standard English (such as grammar and punctuation)

A hard copy of your response, whether handwritten or printed, is due at the beginning of
class. If your response is two pages, then you must staple the pages together. Late responses
will not be accepted and will receive a zero grade. Emailed or Kakaoed responses will not be
accepted and will receive a zero grade.

If you know beforehand that you will be absent on a given day, please let me know so that we
can arrange for you to turn in your response on time.

Midterm and Final Exams

Both in-class written examinations will require you to 1) identify quotations by work,
context, and significance; 2) identify characters, settings, and symbols by putting them in
their context, and 3) write short responses to a choice of prompts.

You must take the exams on the dates they are scheduled. You cannot make up an exam if
you are absent on the day it is scheduled. If you do not take an exam, for any reason, you will
receive a grade of zero—not merely an F—on the exam.

Attendance and Participation

Your success in this class depends on your attendance and participation. According to
university policy, five or more absences will result in an automatic F for the class.
If you come to class after I have taken attendance, please see me after class to confirm that I
have marked you present. However, if you are more than 10 minutes late, or if you leave
more than 10 minutes before the end of class, you will be marked absent. Please note that I
do not distinguish excused absences from unexcused absences. I will not accept any
documentation regarding absences. An absence is an absence in this class.

When you are present, your participation makes class productive, enjoyable, and engaging.
Therefore, I expect each of you to participate enthusiastically in English in class activities.

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Please know that I call on individuals by name during each class period. If you do not know
an answer, do not smile nervously or look down at your book. Instead, say, “I don’t know” or
“I’m not sure.” If you do not understand something, please ask about it; if you do not
understand something, other students also probably do not understand it. Asking me
questions helps everyone in class.

Attendance and participation grades will be based on who participates in class and how; who
attends class and who does not; who is prepared and who is not; who arrives on time, comes
late, and leaves early; who uses a mobile phone during class; who comes and goes during
class to take calls or tend to other personal business; who sleeps; who talks to others while
other students or I am talking; and who does work for other classes or reads other materials.
Your participation grade in this class will reflect your behavior in the classroom.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Cheating on exams is a serious academic offense. Any student who is caught cheating on an
exam will receive a grade of F for the class, not just for the exam.

Plagiarism on your reading responses is another serious academic offense that will lead to
serious disciplinary action. Plagiarism is deliberately presenting another person’s work as
your own, without acknowledgement.

Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Using the work of someone else or changing some words and keeping the same structure
and the same meaning and submitting it as your own work.

2. Taking text from many other sources and putting the pieces together as one document and
submitting it as your own work.

3. Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and submitting the
result as your own work.

4. Buying work from a company, or having another person or company create your work for
you.

If I suspect that a student has plagiarized a reading response, I will ask the student to explain
it on the spot at any time. If I suspect that a student has used AI, I will require the student to
submit an electronic version of the reading response to run through online AI detection tools.

Any student who plagiarizes on a reading response will receive a zero grade—not merely an
F—for the response. Any student who plagiarizes on a second reading response will receive a
grade of F for the class, not just a zero for the reading response. Therefore, if you have any
questions about what constitutes a violation of the academic integrity policy for this course,
please contact me.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

Finish reading an assignment BEFORE we are scheduled to discuss it in class. Write any
questions or comments you may have in the text’s margins. Remember that you are required
to bring a copy of A Visit from the Goon Squad to every class.

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Date Assignment

3/6 Introduction to course

3/13 “Found Objects” and “The Gold Cure”

Reading response #1 due

3/20 “Ask Me If I Care”

3/27 “Safari”

4/3 “You (Plural)” and “X’s and O’s”

Reading response #2 due

4/10 NO CLASS! ELECTION DAY!

4/17 “You (Plural)” and “X’s and O’s” continued

4/24 MIDTERM EXAM

5/1 “A to B”

5/8 “Selling the General”

Reading response #3 due

5/15 NO CLASS! BUDDHA’S BIRTHDAY!

5/22 “Forty-Minute Lunch: Kitty Jackson Opens Up About Love, Fame, and Nixon!”

5/29 “Out of Body”

Reading response #4 due

6/5 “Good-bye, My Love”

6/11 TUESDAY MAKE-UP CLASS: “Great Rock and Roll Pauses”

6/12 “Pure Language”

6/19 FINAL EXAM