English 2783
The Art of Fact: Contemporary Literary Journalism
Prompt # 9
1 October 2010
Moving ahead on the "New" journalism
Reading Tom Wolfe (and others)
As we agreed last night, we're going to spend some time exploring
this book:
Tom Wolfe. The New Journalism, With an Anthology Edited by Tom
Wolfe and E.W. Johnson. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
There is a copy of Tom Wolfe's Introduction to the book accessible via the
Moodle site. The first part of the work for next week will be
to read it and post an inkshed on your reading on the Tom Wolfe
forum. As you read, be thinking about all the things people have
said about defining this form, practicing it, its contexts, and its
history.
Keep track of questions that come up as you read (see a couple of
examples below), and list them as part of your inkshed. Spend at
least 15 minutes writing, as you would with an inkshed in class, and
then list some questions. After you've posted, there will be the
usual 45 minute pause for reflection before you can read the list of
possible readings. To make sure there's no overlap, we'll do the
choosing as we did before, via emails to the class list.
You should read this and post as soon as you can, to have the widest
choice among the readings. When your choice is confirmed I'll either
scan and post the reading, make a print copy, or help you find it
online (many of them will be accessible on the Web).
To avoid unreasonable deadlines, here's a reasonable one: you should
have read the Introduction, posted your inkshed and questions, and
made your choice of a reading before next Monday at 1:00 pm (if it's
later than that, getting a copy will pose a problem).
Here are a couple of questions that I might ask about the first page
of the intro:
Who is "Saul" in "Damn it all, Saul, the Huns
have arrived"?
What does he mean by "this Student Prince Maudlin state of mind"?
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