As promised, but much later than I’d hoped, here are some ideas for our “play” unit group exercise, in which we’ll assume roles and “play” in and around a slim novel of our collective choice. Please use the link below to enter your preferences. But first, here are the finalists. All four are fairly slim, fast reads, which was Priority One:

The Awakening:

turn-of-the-century novel by Kate Chopin, a pioneer of women’s fiction in the US. The plot relates the story of Edna Pontellier, a genteel married woman in South Lousiana, who breaks free of her conventional social role in all sorts of ways. It doesn’t end well for her.
Why it would be fun: scandalous at the time, revived in the 70s in “second wave” of feminism, lively plot/characters/setting. And it’s in public domain, so cheap/fast to get.

The Bluest Eye:

Toni Morrison’s first novel, published in 1970s and set in 1940 or so. Traces the story of the Black community in a small industrial town in OH, focusing on the travails of Pecola, a vulnerable poor Black girl who yearns for “blue eyes” and thus is subjected to the era’s tacit elevation of “white beauty.”
Why it would be fun: well, not exactly fun in term of the content, but Morrison was a young mother when she wrote the novel, which would be fun to explore. In addition to the panoply of vivid characters, one could play a “second wave” feminist reviewer, a member of the Black Arts movement, or perhaps secondary-school teacher or ordinary school-age reader of the text. Not pub domain, but very cheap and widely available.

Benito Cereno:

Melville’s masterful novella whose protagonist, the cheerful-yet-clueless Amasa Delano, happens upon a strange ship people with mostly enslaved people and a skeleton crew of whites. Sloooowly he comes to realize that the enslaved people have taken over the ship. The drama is in the amazingly distorted vision Delano possesses, which makes him blind to the Black agency that’s in front of his nose.
Why it would be fun: hugely influential text with lots of great characters to play. Melville has a fascinating biography himself, and he based it on a real incident, so one could play the “real” Amasa Delano. Rich reception history, so one could play a critic or editor or teacher. Pub domain: lots of free options, including one on CUNY’s Manifold instance.

The Great Gatsby:

you probably know it, but it’s Nick Carraway’s narrative of Jay Gatz/Gatsby’s stunning rise and fall amid the backdrop of Jazz Age NYC.
Why it would be fun: Bathtub gin, gangsters, racism, and flappers: what’s not to like? One could play Fitzgerald, one of many characters, one of the many significant critics or adapters of the text (Baz Luhrman, director of a recent film version, or the Elevator Repair Service’s production of GATZ, a nearly verbatim adaptation for the stage).

To get a sense of how the game looks, you can see a prior DH 720s crack at two Nella Larsen novellas here. And here’s some honors English students at Hunter “playing” a collection of stories from the African-American writer Charles Chesnutt. From the splash pages, click on GAMES to access the actual play for both projects. It’s a bit hard to “read” someone else’s game, since it’s in backwards order and really is more process- than product-oriented. But at least you can check out the interface and get a feel.

Tonight, we’ll finalize what texts and how many groups, and we’ll also try to quickly rough in roles as much as possible. Then you’ll create your character page (here’s an example) and make your first move for next week, which will require some background reading. I’ll hack together some resources for research once I know what text/s we’re playing.

Here’s the Google Form to help us rough in the project: takes one minute only!

I really enjoyed your spontaneous presentations of examples of annotation–for scholars, for students, for laypeople–from the wilds of the web. Here is a messy list of what you came up with:

• Conn’s resource for students learning Latin translation (Dickinson College)
• Ostap’s metaresource listing scores of examples of annotation projects, including the densely annotated Ada
• Martin’s site featuring page images of Ross Ashby’s journals on cybernetics.
• Georgette’s pedagogical site with student readings of Frankenstein (SUNY Geneseo)
• Lisa’s site examining the editorial history of the Shelley-Godwin circle.
• Maggi’s site juxtaposing feminist poems with related artworks and DIY paper-based annotations.
• My tour of Candide 2.0 (NYPL, via the Wayback Machine) and Amardeep Singh’s edition of Cane.

In a bit of kismet, Matthew Rubery, whose pioneering work on the audiobook and oralizations of novels we will be reading and discussing, is giving an online lecture next week at U of IL. Details below: I’m going to try to catch part of it around my teaching schedule.

The Center for Children’s Books at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign is having an online lecture that will be of interest to those DHers with audio interests. Please see abstract below and attached flyer:

Prof. Matthew Rubery, “Book Audio”
Sept 17, 12-1pm CST

Audiobooks do more than reproduce printed books. Although the audiobook’s reliance on sound is sometimes perceived as a liability, there are numerous instances in which the addition of sound effects might be said to enhance the reading experience. This presentation examines recordings that take advantage of the audiobook’s affordances to go beyond simply replicating print. Drawing on sources ranging from children’s books to celebrity memoirs, it takes up the question: What happens when publishers experiment with sound to create “book audio” instead of audiobooks—that is, recordings whose soundtracks go beyond the verbal description of sounds by using actual sounds?

To sign up, check this URL for the Zoom info on 9/17: https://ccb.ischool.illinois.edu/ss/

Our first session will discuss a few texts that consider, on the most basic level, what reading is. Reading comes so naturally to us that we often fail to examine what it is, how it works, and what kind of mental and material practices it encompasses. Using the readings as a springboard (I hope the Leah Price book arrives on time from reserve!), write a post about some combination of the following:

• the media that undergird your reading in all their glorious materiality: the small “form factor” and cheap price of the mass-market paperback; the intimate whisper of the Audible narrator in the earbuds; the dynamic and multimodal space of the browser window.
• the community, implied or literal, that is convened by your reading: the book group, the Goodreads or Facebook “friends,” the Twitter literary dustups, the fandoms around popular texts, even the feeling, however abstract, of the other “implied readers” hailed by the narrator of whatever your reading.

The best posts will drill down into specifics. You might even focus on a single text you’re reading now, challenging yourself to tease out aspects of reading it that are normally invisible because so deeply ingrained in habit.

For a general overview of why I assign blog posts and what makes for a good post, check this out. For this course, my expectations are a bit looser, since it’s an interdisciplinary program and close reading of texts is less central. But the overview gives you some idea of what I’m looking for.

I’ll send out via email as well, but a few things:

1. I’ve created a little space for introductions using the nifty Padlet platform. Follow my lead and jot down something about yourself using parts of speech to guide us prior to our Thursday meeting.
2. Please fill out the simple survey I created so I can learn more about you.
3. If you haven’t, respond to my invitations to the Commons. I sent out new invites today (Tuesday) if you missed the first one.

Just a quick welcome to 720 students for the fall. We’ll meet in earnest on Thursday. For now, be sure to check the email I sent and respond to the quick survey so I can add you to the Commons group/site we’ll use to share work and stay organized. Looking forward to meeting you soon!