Reading / Viewing Schedule

All reading material not in the books can be found in the Google Drive.

Here is a print version of the syllabus:

1 : Introduction (Modernism)

Tuesday, June 25th

2 : Poetry in the 50s

Thursday, June 27th

Read:

Frank O’Hara, selections of poetry

Allen Ginsberg, selections of poetry

Watch: 

Billie Holiday documentary

3 : Black Arts Movement

Tuesday, July 2nd

Read:

LeRoi Jones, The Dutchman (1964)

Jones, sections from Blues People

Amiri Baraka, selection of poems

Larry Neal, “The Black Arts Movement”

4 : NO CLASS

Thursday, July 4th

5 : Junkies

Tuesday, July 9th

Read:

William S. Burroughs, Junky (1953)

Burroughs, selections from Naked Lunch 

Hubert Selby Jr., Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957)

Watch:

Shirley Clarke, The Connection (1961)

6 : John Cassavetes 

Thursday, July 11th

Watch:

Shadows (1959) — online

Faces (1968) — online

Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) — online

7 : Greenwich Village Bohemianism

Tuesday, July 16th

Read:

Don DeLillo, Great Jones Street (1973)

Bob Dylan, chapter from Chronicles: Volume 1 (2004)

Watch: 

Selected videos

8 : Fast Speaking Women

Thursday, July 18th

Read:

Anne Waldman, Fast Speaking Woman (1974)

Patti Smith, selections of poems

Bernadette Mayer, selection of poems

Watch: 

Selected videos

9 : Mean Streets

Tuesday, July 23rd

Read: 

Jim Carroll, The Basketball Diaries (1963)

Watch: 

Panic in Needle Park (1971)

Taxi Driver (1976)

10 : Punk!

Thursday, July 25th

Read:

Please Kill Me, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (1996)

Watch: 

Selected videos

11 : The 1980s

Tuesday, July 30th

Read: 

Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

Watch: 

Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (1989)

12 : The Art World

Thursday, August 1st

Read: 

David Wojnarowicz, Close to the Knives (1991)

Watch: 

Henry Hills, Money (1985)

Julian Schnabel, Basquiat (1996)