Undergraduate Honors Seminar | Atomic Anxiety: The Cold War in Literature and FilmThe University of New Mexico | Fall 2012University Honors 221.001 | Tuesday 12:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. | SHC 28Instructor | Andrew AscherlOffice Hours | Tuesday 9:30 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. and by appointment | SHC 2Cemail | aascherl@unm.edu

Seminar Description

This seminar will explore some of the most interesting cultural expressions of the Cold War period. During this time of vacillation between tension and détente in U.S.-Soviet relations, there was a veritable explosion of cultural development among the youth of the world as well as among elite intelligentsia; in pop culture as well as in avant-garde and experimental art. This seminar will look at an international selection of literature and film of the era in all its multifaceted and contradictory manifestations, all with the intention of further defining the notion of subjectivity as expressed through culture.

Through a frank and open encounter with various texts, we will examine both the catastrophes and the triumphs of the late twentieth century as it existed under constant threat of nuclear annihilation. We will also take up the task of interrogating the conflict between capitalism and communism as well as psychoanalytic approaches to art.

Seminar RequirementsAttendance 10%Participation (including provocations, email questions, contributions to the seminar blog, and weekly participation in the seminar) 35%Mid-Semester Paper (4-5 pages) 20%Final Research Paper (10-12 pages) 35%

Required Texts (available at UNM Bookstore unless otherwise noted)Graham Greene, The Quiet American (New York: Penguin Books.1955)Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009).John Le Carre. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (New York: Penguin Books, ).John Le Carre. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (New York: Penguin Books, ).Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, trans. John Glad (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), Several shorter texts available on eReserve (see below).

Films available on reserve to view at the Fine Arts Library

Burnt by the Sun, dir. Nikita Mikhalov (1994)Detour, dir. Edgar G. Ulmer (1945) Double Indemnity, dir. Billy Wilder (1944)Goodbye Lenin!, dir. Wolfgang Becker (2003)Kiss Me Deadly. dir. Robert Aldrich (1955)Salt of the Earth, dir, Herbert J. Biberman (1953)The Third Man, dir. Carol Reed (1949)

> > Some required texts are also available to check out at the Zimmerman Library reserve desk. <

Readings

Students must attend all classes and read all required readings. Readings will be assigned each week, according to the schedule of classes, from one or more of the course texts. The readings listed for each respective seminar meeting should be completed prior to the day for which it is assigned. Because many of the readings include complicated theoretical arguments, we will spend a significant amount of each class period discussing the texts.

NB: Texts that are available on electronic reserve are denoted with an asterisk (*). It is your responsibility to download, print out, and read all required eReserve texts before the seminar meeting in which they are to be discussed.

To access e-reserve texts, click the eReserves link from the UNM Libraries home page (http://www.unm.edu/libraries/). Next, click the Electronic Reserves for Students link, then click the Course Pages by Instructor tab, and select my name (Ascherl) from the drop-down menu. Click the Search button. Then click the link to our seminar (UHON221-001) and enter the password (anxiety221). All eReserve texts for this course will be available for you to download there.

> > Note on assigned films: Throughout the semester I have assigned several films for you to view. All of these films (are on reserve in the Fine Arts Library (4th floor of George Pearl Hall). The DVDs may not leave the library, but the Fine Arts Library has several viewing stations available. Some of the films may bevariously available through You Tube, Google Video, or Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” streaming video service. Remember, these films are considered required texts, so please make sure you schedule a time to view each film in its entirety, making sure to take notes during the screening. It may be a good idea to view the film in groups of 2-4 (or more) students.

Seminar Participation and ProvocationsClassroom participation consists of lively and engaged, contentious but always civil debate based on a learned familiarity with weekly course assignments. I cannot stress enough the need to do all the reading so that you are prepared to participate fully in each week’s discussion. Throughout the semester you will be required to complete weekly short response paper assignments which will form the basis of our discussions.

Students will begin selected seminar meetings by presenting a twenty-to-thirty minute (minimum) oral provocation based on the assigned readings. Provocations can take a variety of forms—dialogue, debate, class exercise, etc.—and students will be expected to collaborate and provoke. Posting a short list of specific passages from the week’s reading on the seminar blog to focus the discussion for the day is helpful. Please strongly consider coming to my office hours to discuss your provocations in advance: I’d like to make sure you’re on the right track and help you develop your provocation ideas. A more detailed description of my expectations for the provocations can be found on the “Provocations” handout.

In addition, the other students not paired for provocation that week should post to the seminar blog any suggestions for the coming week’s provokers. This can include supplementary quotes, references, and/or insights of relevance. This can be anything (references to other texts on the syllabus, snippets of relevant political news that week, a song lyric that resonates with the text, videos, images, etc). While not a requirement, I will really encourage you to regularly post additional comments and start discussions on the blog as a way to engage the whole group in the week’s reading and cultivate an intellectual community. I have already created this blog, and it can be found at http://atomicanxietyblog.wordpress.com/. While I am the moderator of this blog, all enrolled seminar participants will be empowered as blog authors. You will very shortly receive an invitation to be authors of this blog (hint: this is not an invitation you want to turn down!).

Weekly Response Papers

All students not provoking will email me every week with a brief (1½-2 pages) for a class discussion question or theme. You need to email your short response papers to me by 5pm every Friday. Please understand that getting a response paper from everyone every week is crucial to the success of our discussions throughout the semester as they will help me know what has most interested you about the texts.

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Seminar Schedule

21 August | Introductions > A Psychoanalytic Approach to Anxiety: On Communism and the Cold War

Purchase textbooks; sign up for provocations.

28 August | Prehistory of the Cold War > Stalinism and “the Communist Sacrifice”

Reading: Slavoj Žižek, “When the Party Commits Suicide,” in Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion pp. 88-140.*

Film: Burnt by the Sun, dir. Nikita Mikhalov (1994) > On reserve to view at Fine Arts Library. <

4 September Destruction and Terror > Literature and the GULAG (I)Readings: Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales:

All selections from “Through the Snow” through “Dominoes” pp. 3-113.

11 September | Destruction and Terror > Literature and the GULAG (II)Readings: Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, continued:

The following selections — From “Shock Therapy” through “Typhoid Quarantine” pp. 114-169, “A Piece of Meat” pp. 222-231, “Major Pugachov’s Last Battle” pp. 241-256,“My First Tooth” pp. 380-387. “The Train” pp. 392-402, “The Red Cross” pp. 405-414, “The Letter” pp. 489-494, “Marcel Proust” (download from http://www.duncker.co.uk/Sarah/shalamov.htm), and six other selections of your own choosing — you will need to email me the titles of these selections and be prepared to discuss them along with the other required readings.

18 September | In the Shadows of the Cold War > Transgression and Enjoyment in Film Noir

Readings: Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton, “Toward a Definition of Film Noir.”*Joan Copjec, “Locked Room/Lonely Room: Private Space in Film Noir.”*

Films: Double Indemnity, dir. Billy Wilder (1944).Detour, dir. Edgar G. Ulmer (1994)

> Both on reserve to view at Fine Arts Library. Detour also available on Netflix and You Tube. <

25 September | “The Great Whatsit” > Film Noir and Nuclear ParanoiaReadings: Claude Chabrol, “The Evolution of the Crime Film.”*

Raymond Durgnat, “Paint It Black: The Family Tree of the Film Noir.”*Paul Schrader, “Notes on Film Noir.”*

Film: Kiss Me Deadly, dir. Robert Aldrich (1955). > On reserve to view at Fine Arts Library. <

2 October | Red Scare/Blacklist > The Repression of Dissent in Cold War America

Readings: Selections from James J. Lorence, The Supression of Salt of the Earth: How Hollywood, Big Labor, and Politicians Blacklisted a Movie in Cold War America.*

Film: Salt of the Earth, dir. Herbert J. Biberman (1953)

9 October | International Intrigue > Crime and Espionage in the Cold WarReadings: Graham Greene, The Quiet American

Film: The Third Man, dir. Carol Reed (1949). > On reserve to view at Fine Arts Library. < > > > Mid-Semester Paper due in class today. < < <

16 October | Duplicity and Double Agents > John Le Carré as the Anti-Ian Fleming

Reading: John Le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

23 October | The Prague Spring > “The Promise of Socialism with a Human Face”

Reading: Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Parts One through Four, pp. 3-171.

30 October | The Prague Spring > “Never Again With the Soviet Union”Reading: Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Parts Five through Seven,

pp. 175-314.

6 November | Of Circuses and Moles > The Instrumentalization of Intelligence (I)

Reading: John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, pp. 1-120.

13 November | Of Circuses and Moles > The Instrumentalization of Intelligence (II)

Reading: John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, pp. 121-247.

20 November | Of Circuses and Moles > The Instrumentalization of Intelligence (III)

Reading: John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, pp. 248-381.

27 November | Left-Wing Melancholy, Left-Wing Nostalgia > Nursing the Cold War Hangover

Readings: Charity Scribner, “Left Melancholy,” from David L. Eng and David Kazanjian, eds. Loss: The Politics of Mourning, pp. 300-319.*Roland Végső, “Trauma and Nostalgia: Post-Communist Memories” (unpublished manuscript).*

Film: Goodbye Lenin!, dir. Wolfgang Becker (2003).> On reserve to view at Fine Arts Library. <

4 December | Assessing the Communist Century > The Communist Hypothesis after the Disaster

Readings: Alain Badiou, “Of an Obscure Disaster,” trans. Barbara P. Fulks, in lacanian ink 22 (Fall 2003): 58-89.*

> > > Final Papers due in my office by 12:00 p.m. 12 December 2012 < < <