Rereading

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Hey davemarc, you have hit my pedagogy on the head.  I am sometimes questioned by 
colleagues who think I don't assign enough tonnage on my syllabi, and the exact reason I 
don't is to give students a sense of rereading.  A prof in grad skool (Sallie Sears; good 
critic) once pithily remarked that modern literature's main message is that there is no 
reading, only rereading.  I assign things that are designed to be reread, like Melville's 
*Benito Cereno* which becomes two entirely different works on two reads.  CL49 is IMO 
clearly one of those works as well. Another random example is Joyce's *Araby* from 
DUBLINERS. Gotta run, late for class; we're doing A CLOCKWORK ORANGE today.  On 
a somewhat lesser scale, this one changes in rereading also.

What's it going to be then, eh?

john m


davemarc writes:
>Do any professors encourage re-reading in their own courses?  I can't
>recall any such foax among the bunch I know.  Most professors I know
>"over-assigned," going for quantity rather than quality of reading and
>analysis.  (I am aware of seminars that focus exclusively on GR or Pynchon,
>but what about the more conventional classes?)
>
>davemarc
>
> 
>