Discussion Questions for Day One of _The Bell Jar_

I'd like you to focus on visions and the visual in this first installment of _The Bell Jar_. Feel free to ask questions relating to this topic, or on a subject of your choosing.

"The Oven" by Yevgeny Kharitonov

Post your reading questions for "The Oven" below!

Discussion Questions for Third and Final Day of _Queer_

- What is yage? Why is important to Lee?
- What does Lee have to say about queerness and the Cold War?
-Check out chapter 8's hunchback--he's the second on our syllabus. What do we make of him?

Discussion Questions for Day Two of _Queer_

- How does Lee characterize the queer cast of characters at the Ship Ahoy? How does he define “queer”?

- Who is Bobo? What’s his lesson for Lee?

- Who is Allerton and why is he like a fish? Try tracing fish imagery from this point on.

- What is the routine?



Post your questions below!

Discussion Questions for Day One of _Queer_

Here are some discussion questions for _Queer_. Please add yours to the list below. And remember, we will be returning to "Pkhentz" at the beginning of class, so feel free to add to or modify the questions you posted on Thursday.

- How does Burroughs distinguish himself as author from the somewhat autobiographical hero of his novel? (xii-xvi)

- What is the unmentioned event that “[motivates] and [forms]” Queer? (xviii) How does it seep into the text?

-What is the nature of time in Queer? Close-read pp. 18-19.

- What is the role of the “exotic” and how does it bind desire to racial alterity or otherness?

"Art as Device" and "Pkhentz" Discussion Questions

Here are some discussion questions for the Shklovsky and Sinyavsky readings (to be completed for class on Thursday, July 7). Please tack yours on below!
- What does Shklovsky define as the purpose of art and the task of the artist? Against what extant definitions is he working?
- How is art a device? What does it do and how?
- Is “Pkhentz” an allegory? Of what?
- What is the role of reading, writing and words in “Pkhentz”? Mark all the places texts appear in the story.
- How might we compare the description and function of the sexual grotesque in Sinyavsky’s and Baldwin’s stories?

_Circus_ Exploratory Writing Questions

Writing prompts for the free-write/formal paragraph assignment due Wednesday, July 6. For directions, check the bSpace Assignments tab.

--How are Americans and America depicted? How are Soviets and the Soviet Union depicted? How are Germans depicted?

--What kinds of oppositions—moral and ideological—separate the US and the USSR in the film? How does the film shore up these oppositions with black-and-white/light-and-dark imagery?

--How does the film demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism?

--According to the film, what are the US’s and USSR’s attitudes about race?

--What are the USSR’s attitudes about gender? For instance, who are the new Soviet man and woman? What are their psychological and physical attributes?

--How does the film handle the issues of marriage and romantic love? (Think not only of Marion and Martynov but also Raika and Skameikin.)

--Is this film propaganda, art, entertainment or some combination of the three?

--Why does this ideological struggle take place in the circus? What is the significance of Marion’s “Flight to the Moon” and Martynov’s “Flight to the Stratosphere” acts?

--The dominant metaphor of the film is that the USSR is one big, happy family. Do you agree or disagree? Support your answer.

--What can this film accomplish—artistically and politically—because it is a musical?

--The concept of genre is crucial to the analysis of an artistic text. Circus is not just a musical comedy but also a melodrama. What kinds of emotions does it attempt to invoke in its viewer, how, and to what end?

--What kind of viewer does this film assume? How does it embed these assumptions into its structure?

--How does the film use language—proper and improper Russian as well as non-Russian languages—to convey its ideological message?

For many of these topics, I encourage you to perform a close-reading of the film’s musical refrain, “Broad is my native land.” The lyrics are pasted below:

Broad is my native land,
Many forests, fields and rivers!
I know of no other land
Where man can breathe so freely!
From Moscow to our furthest outposts,
The southern mountains to the northern seas,
Man walks as the master of
His own vast native land!