ENGL 1131 FWS: Mastering College Reading and Writing

At the heart of this FWS lies a question: Why has Hollywood been so interested in, passionate about, and even obsessed with the gangster? For some it almost seems like the answer is a kind of original sin about family, identity, and American capitalism. From the original trilogy of Public Enemy, Little Caesar and Scarface in the 1930s to The Godfather trilogy to The Sopranos, no one can seem to get enough of the gangster genre. In this class we will examine a number of classic gangster films from 1930s Hollywood to recent television epics. We will also look to another national cinema, the Italian, in order to find a critique of the obsession and a monumental de-romanticization of the gangster and the films that unwittingly or not, celebrate him. Among the topics we will be discussing in this course are the following: the central role of violence, the figure of the gangster, masculinities and urban life, Italian-American identity, and last but not least capitalism and its fantasies of business domination. We will conclude with Italian cinema's quite different treatment of the gangster and how a number of directors subvert the perverse fantasies underlying American cinematic treatments.

"Apocalypse" is the end of the world--or ourselves--but it also introduces new forms of being, desire and knowledge. In this course we'll analyze apocalyptic fantasies by writing critical essays: a skill (and art) that crosses disciplines. Course material includes the cult novel that inspired zombie apocalypse movies (I am Legend, by Richard Matheson), mind-blowing short stories from the Golden Era of Science fiction, cult films, jazz and 60's rock, and works staging the collapse of mundane reality (excerpts from The Autobiography of Malcom X, Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House).