{"id":287326,"date":"2011-10-04T16:30:03","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T16:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/10\/04\/todays-nobel-prize-odds-update-the-coolest-class-ever\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T16:16:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T16:16:57","slug":"todays-nobel-prize-odds-update-the-coolest-class-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/10\/04\/todays-nobel-prize-odds-update-the-coolest-class-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Today's Nobel Prize Odds Update + The Coolest Class Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, following on yesterday’s post<\/a> on the forthcoming announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature (supposed to happen on Thursday) and the current odds at Ladbrokes, I just want to point out that the big mover today is Bob Dylan, who shot up from 50\/1 to 10\/1. Interesting . . . <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

More interesting though is this class,<\/a> which Three Percent fan and University of Alabama employee Richard LeComte brought to my attention yesterday:<\/p>\n

\n

Students in English 411, Dr. Emily O. Wittman\u2019s Advanced Studies in Comparative and Multicultural Literature class, don\u2019t just sit and read. They judge.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Wittman has arranged her class of about 20 University of Alabama undergrads as a prize committee, mimicking the panels that select the Nobel, Booker or Pulitzer prizes in literature each year. Her class will pick the winner of the coveted Druid City Brick Award from among some of the great contemporary authors of world literature. In the process, the students will experience life as an awards judge and critic.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cI wanted to do something that would allow the students to understand the problems and the stakes of world literature as a contested field,\u201d said Wittman, assistant professor of English at UA. \u201cHow do we describe what\u2019s great?\u201d [. . ]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cWe talk about translation,\u201d Wittman said. \u201cWe talk about gender. We talk about how politics figure into the awards.That doesn\u2019t mean that in our community that\u2019s how we want to honor our prize-winners. But we learn about what prize committees are and what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

This semester, Wittman\u2019s class started with Canadian author Margaret Atwood\u2019s Oryx and Crake.<\/em> Other books on the class\u2019s short list include Life and Times of Michael K.<\/em> by South African writer J.M. Coetzee; Changeling<\/em> by Japanese author Kenzabur\u014d \u014ce; The Bad Girl<\/em> by recent Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa; and The Goalie\u2019s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick<\/em> by Austrian author Peter Handke. One of the goals of the class is to expand students\u2019 knowledge of 20th century world literature, an area many members of the American reading public tend to overlook. [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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When the votes are in \u2013 Wittman stresses that she\u2019s a nonvoting member of this awards panel \u2013 the class will enshrine the name of the winning author on a brick outside UA\u2019s Ferguson Student Center. And Wittman\u2019s students will be much more aware of how to think critically about the quality of the literature they read.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a fantastic idea, one that would be a lot of fun for everyone involved, would draw out a lot of interesting themes, and would probably spark really good in class conversation. Half-tempted to adopt some aspects of this for my spring World Literature & Translation class. Maybe use some of the titles from this year’s BTBA<\/span> longlist . . . <\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, following on yesterday’s post on the forthcoming announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature (supposed to happen on Thursday) and the current odds at Ladbrokes, I just want to point out that the big mover today is Bob Dylan, who shot up from 50\/1 to 10\/1. Interesting . . . * More interesting though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[42926,5936,42936,42916],"class_list":["post-287326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-dr-emily-o-wittman","tag-nobel-prize","tag-richard-lecomte","tag-university-of-alabama"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342826,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287326\/revisions\/342826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}