Date & time

• in-class students write exam in SSB2308 during class hours (3-6pm) on Thursday, 9 July. No regular class meeting.
• Email exams any time after last meeting on 7 July; due by 3pm Friday 8 July (unless prior arrangements).

No meeting 7 July: Instructor in office (B2529-8); confer, phone (281 283 3380), or email (whitec@uhcl.edu).

Two essays of 1-2 hours each

• Essay 1 from "Overview" topics (listed below)
• Essay 2 on personal / professional interests in subject + research post(s)

content details below

Special Requirements (for entire exam, not each question):

• Title both essays and indicate question number for Overview topic--e. g. A1, A3.
• Refer to 2-3 course objectives (or parts) more than briefly--discuss, develop, question or vary.
   
• Refer to 6 or more texts, at least half since the midterm.
  • Regard the Founding & Multicultural readings for 27 & 28 June as course texts.
     
• Refer to at least one of your research postings, especially in Essay 2.
   
• Quote or refer to at least one passage from the 2009 final exams, 2007 final exams, or 2005 final exams

 Optional references:

Welcome to refer briefly to outside readings and other courses anywhere, but not required.

If helpful, refer to presentation texts or texts encountered via discussions, others' research posts, or web reviews.

Special Advice:

Don't hurry to email exam. When finished, take a break, then return and improve.

If an idea occurs, explore how to develop it. Don't let "rules" make you think something is dumb, prohibited, or to be punished. If you thought of it, there's a reason, so think it through and apply to texts. Ultimately the only judgment is how well you explain and extend it.

Need more content? Try examples; comment and connect.

Since the course has more material before the midterm, don't hesitate to revive pre-midterm texts + discussions--only connect to final themes.

Relative weight: 30-40% of final grade

Format: In-class or email; open-book and open-notebook

Length: Most essays in previous finals were 6-10 paragraphs, varied by paragraph lengths.

Contents

• Essay 1 from "Overview" topics (listed below)
• Essay 2 on personal / professional interests in subject + research post(s)

• If essays overlap with each other or midterm, no need to avoid, + no need to write everything over. Refer quickly to your own work as you would someone else's.
• Objectives are listed with most topics. Don't feel limited to those objectives, but develop objectives with both essays.
• Question prompts are not checklists. Your essays establish their own premises with reference to texts and objectives.

A. Overview topics (choose 1 topic from group A, or combine topics in a single essay)

Topic A1. Utopia as Literature (Objectives 1 & 2, maybe others)
Discussion of utopias often leads to religion, history, politics, sociology, economics, gender, family--everything that constitutes a society. (Interdisciplinary objective 4.) How does a Literature course keep literary considerations foremost in the study of utopias? What benefits or drawbacks?

2-3 course texts, including Ecotopia.

Optional approaches:

• What do you learn about literature and fiction from studying this special genre?
• How did fiction help you learn about utopian societies and thought?
• Since Utopias are written primarily for social purposes, what strategies, frustrations, or rewards in keeping the "literature" aspect in sight?
• In contrast, how may Utopia's non-literary aspects appeal to non-Literature students or students lacking confidence in genre?
• Recall passages or scenes in utopian fiction that deliver literary satisfactions. Identify what may be literary as opposed to cultural or social about such pleasures.
• Apply to teaching or your own learning.
• If literary purposes are overlooked, what risks do utopian studies run in literature courses?

Topic A2. Utopias: Monocultural or Multicultural? (Obj. 3h & 4c)

Obj. 3h. How may utopian texts, communities, and studies exemplify multiculturalism or monoculturalism?

• Does defending utopian studies as "Western Civilization" simply muscle out multiculturalism?
• Is the utopian impulse universal or specific only to Western culture or civilization?
• If utopias or millennia are detected in non-Western texts or traditions, are such terms appropriate, or do we simply project our identities and values on cultures that are in fact doing something else altogether?

Assignment: Address one or more of Obj. 3h's questions, or develop a new question on related issues of utopia and multiculturalism.

How much should utopian studies invite, require, or repress racial / ethnic difference or dissent? Consider the  multicultural value of "equality and difference" in relation to utopias' emphasis on equality with risks of conformity.

Welcome to suggest revisions or extensions to Objective 3h.

3-4 text references, incl. Ecotopia:

• at least one text from 28 January (slave narratives, King's Dream speech, Chief Seattle, Wovoka) + Toni Morrison's Paradise

• historical utopia?--race may not be emphasized, but what impressions of mono- or multi-culturalism?

• research posting?

• For a "monocultural" utopia, consider connecting to one of our primary utopian texts or to the dominant culture texts from Founding Utopias on 27 January.

Content prompts:

• Did "multicultural texts" contribute to the course, or did the effort strain the utopian concept?

• Are utopian studies fundamentally a "Western Civilization" theme and not a universal or multicultural concept?

• Despite the diversification of literary studies, utopian studies seems to meet multicultural literature only tangentially. How might these fields meet more productively without losing essential western-civilization backgrounds of classic utopian thought?

• Minority or multicultural narratives often operate by "oppression > liberation." Are such narratives compatible with utopian or dystopian literature?

• Suggest revisions to Objectives 3h & 4c?

• Topic A3. Teaching Utopia (Obj. 5 & others  depending on answer content)
  Evaluate the significance, worthiness, and range of utopian studies as a topic for literature courses at any educational level.

• What gains and risks does the subject pose?

• What potential for motivating or alienating students?

• What positives and negatives for utopian studies in contrast to our educational & economic emphasis on heroic individualism in dystopian texts like 1984 and Anthem?

• Personal & professional experiences are welcome, but return to objectives and texts in this course or other courses.

Ecotopia must be discussed at some point, if only to acknowledge difficulties in teaching, limitations of time period (but don’t overlook demand of subject)

• As texts for public school curricula, how successfully might Ecotopia or other utopian texts of our utopian texts replace standard assigned texts in the dystopian tradition such as Anthem, 1984, and Brave New World? What problems or rewards?

• What subjects do utopian studies open for study that are otherwise repressed or ignored?  

Essay 2 on personal / professional interests in subject + research post(s)

Continue, refer to, and/or diverge from the "special interests" passages of your midterm exam.

Make direct references to what you wrote then. Enlarge or extend earlier positions in relation to texts since the midterm, including Ecotopia. (You may also continue to explicate pre-midterm texts.)

Refer to at least one of your research posts.

Relate your essay to at least one course objective (or part of one, or some combination). Evaluate and revise.

Plan or imagine a larger research project based on your research posting(s) and other sources in this course or beyond.

Consider web reviews, class discussions, outside readings, other courses at any level as student or teacher.

Refer to 3 or more texts from across the semester including Ecotopia.

Outside texts, courses, issues are all possibilities, but speak to this course's objectives, materials, and methods.

Relevant content from midterm assignment:

[midterm question] 3. Highlight special interests in course (potentially involving 1^st &/or 2^nd research post)

·        What personal attraction or apprehension toward subject of utopia? How has this reaction developed?

·        What are you most interested in learning from or about this subject? Or, what aspect(s) seems most valuable? Consider in relation to your 1^st and/or 2^nd research post?

·        Relate your interests to a course objective (or part of one, or some combination of 2 or more, which may overlap w/ 2 & 3 above).

o   Analyze your interest in the objective(s) and review the seminar's discussion. (If this objective hasn't yet received much coverage, welcome to play it off what we have discussed)

o   An option here (and on the final): revise an objective or offer a new one. Relate your new objective to the existing objectives or their organization.

o   Explain and defend your emphasis and relate it back to the seminar's attractions, distractions, etc.

o   The final exam offers an option of continuing the objective-discussion.

Evaluation standards: As in most Literature courses, quality of reading and writing is the key to judging excellent work from competent work--not just reproducing data but organizing a unified, compelling essay.

"Unified": Thematic continuity and transitions are essential. Connect parts to form larger ideas. Pause between paragraphs to review what you've written or to preview what comes next. Summarize. Explain. Review and preview.

"Compelling": Exams require comprehension and expression of instructional contents. Excellence appears when students use fresh examples, insights, and expression to extend or vary what they learn. A good sign is learning as you write.

Style: At the graduate level, competence with surface issues like spelling, punctuation, and grammar is taken for granted. An occasional careless error won't kill your grade, given time pressures, but repeated or chronic errors will be remarked and factored.

Paragraph and essay organization: Expect suggestions. (Paragraph organization + transitions)

Audience: Write so someone in our seminar could recognize your terms, process your explanations, and enjoy your personal contributions and style. Future students may read your essays in our "Model Assignments." Keep instructor and assignment in sight--connect with shared terms and texts, and "write up" in terms of organization and ambition of thought.

In-class and email exams are read separately, with different conditions factored.

Return of final exams

Receipt of your email final exam will be acknowledged by reply email, usually within a few hours.

Grade and note for your final exam will be emailed individually, usually within a week after deadline, as part of final grade report (which will also include grade and note for 2nd research post).