Popular Literature (Session I)

ENG 381: WRITING INTENSIVE SECTION [CRN 91994, Sec. 601]
Popular Literature
Urban Fantasy
Mon-Fri 1:30-2:45 pm, Sakamaki A102
5/22-6/30/17

Instructor: Ida Yoshinaga (ida@hawaii.edu), ABD and MA, English, UHM Creative Writing Program

Come with us on a journey of wonder, curiosity, and enchantment…to the modern city? This course explores stories that create magical settings of contemporary urban environments, with their industrial neighborhoods, offices, poverty and other social problems, and complex cultural systems. How do magic and myth collide with very human frailties, and what kinds of marvelous adventures result?

We will explore the spiritual, moral, and numinous dimensions of the fantasy genre, via oral folklore, print literature, film, TV, music videos, digital games, and other media.

GRADING REQUIREMENTS:
2 exams, 3 short papers, 1 PowerPoint essay, informal Discussion Board posts, participation

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Written in the Sky, by Matthew Kaoipio
Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson
Trash, Sex, Magic, by Jennifer Stevenson
Magic for Beginners: Stories, by Kelly Link
King Rat, by China Mieville
– Access to Laulima course website where the Resources folder will contain URLs and PDFs for accessing other readings about urban-fantasy storytelling and cinema.
– Access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or another streaming or DVD/Blu-Ray purchasing service, that allows viewing of various fantasy, horror, science fiction, and fairy tale films and other urban-fantasy texts, titles TBA.