Jonathan Safran Foer discusses EL&IC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOOzBinl5vU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBkvw6LGxSo

English Honors Students at SJSU Explore 9/11 Anniversary and its Significance

English Honors Students at SJSU Reflect and Investigate the Impact of 9/11 on Literature and Culture of the United States

 Many Americans believe or have claimed that “everything changed” after September 11, 2001. Does American literature, culture, and society reflect this change?

While around the U.S. this coming week, Americans will be remembering, commemorating, and re-living the events of September 11, 2001, a group of SJSU’s brightest students will be reflecting on the larger and cultural/social impact of that historic day on American culture and society. A group of 13 honors students from the Department of English and Comparative Literature, taught by Professor Persis Karim, have started their semester by reading and analyzing literature produced immediately after 9/11 and in the years following. Although the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington D.C., and the United Airlines plane over Pennsylvania will be revisited in the media through stories and remembrances of survivors and those who perished in the attacks and a plethora of images that have been seared on the minds of Americans of all generations, students in the Honors Seminar, many of whom were in middle school on that fateful day, will attempt to understand how it altered their generation and the larger cultural landscape of the United States.

Poster commemorating FDNY, May 3, 2011
photo: Persis Karim 

Students in “Literature and Culture after 9/11” are currently reading literature (poetry, prose and fiction) written in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, such as a compilation called Afterwords: Stories and Reports from 9/11 and Beyond as well as novels, essays, and historical documents (such as excerpts from the 9/11 Commission Report). Some of the novels that students will read include Jonathan Franzen’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Don Delillo’s Falling Man, and Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, all of which have now become part of the canon of American literature that describes 9/11 and its impact. Students will also read literature authored by Americans of Muslim, Arab and Middle Eastern heritage, including Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land, as well as excerpts from Afghan-American writing such as Bay Area writer Tamim Ansary’s West of Kabul, East of New York, written and published immediately after 9/11.

The course will also look at the ways that civil rights, law and public perceptions of immigrants have been deeply affected by 9/11. The class will also read Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun, a journalistic account of an innocent Arab-American man living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina who gets caught up in the anti-Muslim fervor of the post-9/11 years. In addition to written texts, the class will view several documentaries and will view news specials that commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  The class will respond on their class blog: “9/11: Through the Looking Glass.” Their first assignment next week is to post a response to the coverage of the ten-year anniversary and some of the reading they are doing. The class has also established a public Facebook page which serves as a place for student comments, insights, and a class resource of articles, websites, and information about the upcoming 9/11 anniversary: http://www.facebook.com/groups/263009833722702

New York City, Ground Zero, 9/11 Memorial Construction.
photo: Persis Karim 

The objectives of the class are to understand how a major historical event continues to reverberate in our society, to shape the ways we view ourselves as Americans, and to perhaps reflect on the events of 9/11 with an attention to the many perspectives, experiences, and continuing effects it has both nationally and internationally. A public forum to assess the impact of 9/11 will be hosted later this month with members of the legal, cultural, and journalistic community.

For more information, contact Professor Persis Karim: persis.karim@sjsu.edu.

Required Texts

Afterwords: Stories and Reports from 9/11 and Beyond

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim by Mahmood Hamdani

Falling Man by Don Delillo

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

How Does it Feel to Be a Problem by Moustafa Bayoumi


The Emperor’s Children by Claire  Messud

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Once in a Promised Land by Laila Halaby

Course Packet containing essays, poems, and nonfiction purchased at Maple Press 

Films

“The Road to Guantanamo”

“Fahrenheit 9/11”

Recommended Reading

New York Writes: 110 Stories after September 11 edited by
       Ulrich Baer
Homeboy by  H. M. Naqvi

Look at Me by Jennifer Eagan

West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary
War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims by
         Melody Moezzi

Movies and Television after 9/11 by Wheeler Winston Dixon

Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects edited by Amaney
         Jamal and Nadine Naber


Music

"The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen
"Transmigration of Souls" by John Adams