Announcements:
- Again, no CUNY classes Thursday for Rosh Hashanah: see you next week
- Also: you should have signed up for a group presentation in class. If you haven’t, contact me immediately. I’ll send an email to connect all the members and some additional instructions this week.
- If you missed class, be sure to download the instruction sheet for our first written assignment that’s due Tuesday 10/3. See the Assignments page
Recap from this week’s class:
- See my lecture notes on Piñero on the Lecture Notes page
- Intro to Short Eyes and historical contexts
- See the short background clip on the 1971 Attica prison rebellion
Tuesday 9/26: Finish reading Piñero’s play Short Eyes (pages 193-243 in Outlaw) and watch the film version embedded below. Short Eyes is set entirely in a prison (actually a house of detention: think Riker’s Island). Think about what the setting means and how characters react to it. Also consider how Piñero’s own experience and outlook on life shape what and who he writes about.
Questions to think about to guide your reading:
- What characters does he show in the play?
- What language does he use and what effect does that have?
- What audiences do you think Piñero is writing for?
- What similarities or differences do you see with his poetry?
- What’s the setting he chooses and what side of the city does that show?
- What are some of the key themes the play deals with?
- Identify key points of the play where the storyline (plot) turns or changes. Mark significant points where this happens in your book and write them down in your notes. What causes the plot turns and how might actors on stage make them believable?
Watch the film version of Piñero’s Short Eyes (1978). Piñero has a few scenes in the beginning as the fictional character Go Go. The famous soul vocalist Curtis Mayfield has a part also in addition to creating the soundtrack.
For Thursday, September 28th, we’ll move to the first novel of the semester. Read pages 1-54 in Ernesto Quiñonez’s Bodega Dreams.
A few things to pay attention to in the book are:
- The characters Quiñonez creates and what slice of city life they show
- How urban space is shown in the book and what different characters think about their surroundings
- The role of culture and what it means
- Quiñonez’s relationship as a writer to Pietri and Piñero (there are numerous references to both and their poetry throughout the book)
- The “American Dream” and what it means to the characters in the book
- How different generations of immigrants/migrants relate to the city and city life
- Race and gender relations
This isn’t a complete list, but these are a few key things that jump out at me. Begin to look for connections/ similarities / differences in things we’ve read (and other things you’ve read/ watched /studied in other classes, etc).
If you keep up with the weekly reading and take good notes, then you’ll be well prepared for the midterm and final exam and get much more out of the class!
Contemporary Urban Writers 