EN258E : Special Topics:
Fairy Tales
Fall Semester 2009
Monday and Thursday 11:00-12:15
Click here for the course syllabus.
Instructor: Robert Epstein
Office: 120 Donnarumma Hall
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00-12:00 and 1:00-3:00, or by appointment
Office extension: 2787
E-mail: repstein@fairfield.edu
DESCRIPTION AND PURPOSE
This course will focus on the classic fairy tales—"Beauty and the Beast," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Cinderella," "Snow White," etc.—in their oldest preserved versions by authors like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, in post-modern retellings, and in popular culture. We will also read modern tales in the mode of folklore by authors like Hans Christian Andersen, as well as Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, which is deeply informed by the conventions and themes of fairy tales. And we will engage the critical literature on fairy tales and related genres. The class leads to the production of a critical research paper. Attention throughout will be on developing skills of close-reading, thesis development, and argumentation, by way of such themes as: the construction of childhood and the family; fairy tale structure and the marriage plot; feminism and the construction of gender roles; the conception of nature; historical changes in the presentation of fairy tales and their imagined audiences; class, rank, and status; anonymity, authorship, and commercialization.
REQUIREMENTS
Students are required to attend all class meetings. If you have to miss a class for a foreseeable obligation, inform me beforehand. I also expect all students to have fulfilled the assignment and to be prepared to participate in class discussion. Attendance and participation will be factors in grading. Please bring the assigned texts to class!
Each week, students will write a response paper, about a page in length, on the assigned readings. These will be kept in a portfolio, and evaluated collectively at the end of the semester.
There will be two critical essays, each about 5-6 pages long, due during the semester. At the end of the semester, a longer research paper (approximately 10-12 pp.) will be due. For this paper, I will ask you to research any fairy tale of your choosing-- so long as it is not among those tales assigned as part of the course syllabus. You will investigate the history of the tale, locating its earliest recorded version and at least one other version; you may also look into how the tale has evolved over the years, how it varies in different cultures, and how its meaning is different in its different tellings. We will discuss these terms and requirements further at the end of the semester, and your research will be facilitated by a library instructional session on research databases and technologies.
In the final weeks of the course, students will deliver oral presentations in class on the fairy tale they are researching for their final papers.
There will be other occasional writing assignments. These assignments will not be graded, but they are required will be considered alongside class attendance and participation when figuring the grade for the course.
FORMAT OF ESSAYS
All submitted papers should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for formatting a paper. These guidelines can be found in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed., which is available in the Reference Section of the library and in the Writing Center. They are also summarized on pp. 119-154 of Diana Hacker’s Pocket Style Manual. When commenting on your essays, I will refer to Hacker on matters of format and style.
GRADING
Papers are due at the beginning of class on the day indicated on the syllabus. Unless I have explicitly granted an extension before the due date, late papers will be penalized one-third of a letter grade per day. (A paper that would have earned a B+ will receive a B if it is one day late, a B- if it is two days late, and so on.)
After each of the first two essays are submitted, I will read them and return them with grades and with comments and suggestions. Students will then have one week from the day the graded papers are returned to revise the papers in light of my comments and to resubmit them for re-grading. The grade for the revised essay may go up by as much as a full letter grade. (The grade might not go up at all; it will not go down.) This is to encourage you to think of every essay as a work in progress and to revise your work as thoroughly and as frequently as possible. Papers submitted late may not be revised and resubmitted.
As you write and revise your essays, please keep in mind that there are peer-tutors in the Writing Center trained to help students of any level develop work at any stage.
Grades for the course will be determined according to the following formula:
ACADEMIC HONESTY
Secondary critical sources are not required for the first three essays assignments in this course, but they will be required on the final critical research paper. On any assignment, however, you must fully cite any sources that you use. The source must appear in the list of works cited at the end of the essay, and each source must be cited on every occasion that you make use of its words or ideas. This is true if the source is your primary source (the text you are studying) or a critical source (an analysis of the work published elsewhere), and it is true if the source is printed or electronic, including internet sources. Follow the MLA style of in-text citation and lists of works cited described in A Pocket Style Manual, pp. 128-148.
The failure to fully cite sources within your submitted work is a form of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the appropriation of ideas, data, work, or language of others and submitting them as one’s own to satisfy the requirements of a course. Plagiarism constitutes theft and deceit. Special care should be taken, when cutting and pasting materials or when paraphrasing, to cite sources correctly and to use quotation marks around exact words from source materials. Actions that result in plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional. Consequently, students must understand the concept of plagiarism. When reading, processing, or using materials from any source, appropriate documentation is always essential.
The consequences of plagiarism may range from failure on the assignment to failure for the course and university disciplinary action. Resources such as the library (ext. 2178) and the Writing Center (www.fairfield.edu/writingcenter) are available on campus to assist you in your academic endeavors. You are encouraged to take advantage of these resources.
TEXTS
The required texts for the class are:
Other readings will be made available through class handouts and Electronic Reserves.
Films will be shown on-line as streaming video; viewing them will require usernames and passwords, which will be distributed to class members by e-mail.