Discussion Questions

Here are this week's Response Prompts:

• What does the title, The Activist, suggest or lead you to expect to find in the book? What is an activist? What does one do as an activist? What do you know about activism? (you might Wikipedia the term). How does the writing demonstrate, engage in, comment on, question, confuse, criticize, or refute the idea of activism?
  
• How would you characterize the style of writing in each section? What's similar? Different? What are the effects of those styles on you as a reader? How do they change your reaction to or understanding of the narrator?
• What are some main themes, ideas, or suggestions in the book? Where and how are they introduced and repeated or returned to in the course of the book?
  
• What is reporting? What does a reporter do? How might we define "a reporter"? What is the nature or function of reporting in The Activist? What does reporting allow Gladman to say or do? What does it restrict her from saying/doing?
• Could you characterize the book's organization or overall form? How does the book's organization or overall form reflect, contrast with, confuse, or converse with Gladman's main themes, ideas, or suggestions throughout?
  

Remember, these prompts are suggestions only. You are free to answer all, some, or none of these, provided that, should you decide these questions aren't sparking your interest or thought, you pose and answer some more in depth questions of your own to explore regardng the course book.

Here too is your Tuesday bonus material. First a link to an audio file of fiction writer Ben Marcus reading some of his work. Then a small excerpt from a much longer essay by fiction writer Ben Marcus on defending Experimental Fiction (taken from an Oct/'05 Harper's Magazine, might be worth tracking down the whole essay in the UMass library periodicals archive). And lastly, a tempering position by critic Jess Row (she gives a few additional quotes from Marcus' essay and tries to re-contextualize his angst). While the first article aims to give contexts for differing labels of writing and literary viewpoints (or more particularly, why writers draw aesthetic lines in the sand), the latter tries to contextualize and question the very nature of the debate. Reactions, opinions, connections to our own readings is encouraged.

• The Father Costume (audio link - only MP3 is working)
• Why Experimental Fiction Threatens..., by Ben Marcus
• Marcus vs. Franzen, by Jess Row