What /lit/erary courses are you taking in the coming semester,

>>7574398
You first, anon

>>7574398
I've graduated, so Im better than all of u

>taking classes
>not teaching them

Typical /lit/.

>taking any literature courses
>not being the math major master race
>[CURRENT YEAR]
but I do a lot of reading and writting as a hobby on the side

>>7574398
>not being a neet
not very patrish of you, anon.

Swahili 101

>>7574398
Shakespeare: Major Tragedies
Victorian Poetry and Politics

Last Semester I took:
From Cooper to Crane: U.S. Fiction in the 19th century
Canadian Literature and Culture (favorite reading list I've had so far)

I'm an English Lit major

>American History post-1877
>Western Civ II Electric Boogaloo

no major yet but gonna go history

>>7575700
Watch birth of a nation and your good on that first course

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>Last semester of English Bachelor's

>Individual Investigation on Jewish-American Lit.
>Teaching Poetry in elementary schools (3 credit field course)
>Creative Non-fiction (writing it)
>Intermediate Spanish II (literary eventually)
>Construction Safety (so I can get a job)

None bc I'm not a cuckold. Mathematics master race. I read in my free time.

>>7575843
Physics major here.
Taking two philosophy courses to finish general requirements for my degree.

>>7574398
A module in early modern philosophy

Senses of the self, a philosophical enquiry of self-consciousness and identity in texts written between the 17th-18th century

last term I took an amazing course on translating cultures, picking apart the ideological distinctions of biblical translation from greek, to latin, to english and then into modernised english, really was incredibly revealing about the development of modern christian faith

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>>7574398
>What's your major?
Failure, anon. Crippling failure.

>Be me.
>Drop out of college at 19 to become a writer.
>Devote every free moment of the next 5 years to the craft.
>Forgo parties and socializing.
>Finish first book.
>It's a Harry Potter derivative PoS fantasy novel.
>Realize that I have so much more to learn.
>Return to college at 24.
>Double major in literature and linguistics.
>5 years later Graduate Magna Cum Laude and finish second book.
>Second book is a science fantasy novel intended to illicit the same sense of wonder and adventure I experienced reading Dumas romance and Robert E. Howard swords and sorcery.
>Protagonist goes through the Dumas hero arc and becomes a space pirate, and the book is filled with action and sexy alien women.
>Pour the entirety of my energy over 4 years into the novel. Create two functional languages and create a detailed, layered narrative built on an underlying, created mythology.
>Mentally and physically exhausted. Choose to self-publish the book like an idiot.
>No one seriously reads self-published books.
>All the reviews are negative because no one reads past the first 3 chapters. "the book's first 30 pages are boring" and "the protagonist is whiny."
>mfw I'm now 30 and realize that I've wasted my youth trying to become a good writer and I've failed.

Just give up, anons. Fuck bitches and become a professor if you love literature.

>>7576026
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>genre fiction
You deserve desu.

>>7575843
>mathematics major
>not a cuck

>>7576026
Would you be able to share an excerpt from any of your work?

I'm currently taking an English Lit course for fun next to my actual study

>>7576026
Funny that you graduated Magna Cum Laude with a focus in literature and linguistics and still didn't know the difference between 'Illicit' and 'Elicit.'

How did you not realise whilst taking your degree at an older age that in addition to having "so much more to learn," even reading sci-fi or fantasy is for dimwits?

You're floating in a different reality than others, anon. You must get a grip and truly give up.

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>>7576069
Here's another failure. A short story I wrote specifically for Asimov's Science Fiction. It's been rejected by every Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine in America.

Spare Parts. The story of the first robot detective, Leroi.

>>7576083
>even reading sci-fi or fantasy is for dimwits
When I was a young tryhard I used to post the same shit. I read Dostoevsky and Hugo, and thought I had elevated myself above others. I looked down on others for their taste. I nitpicked grammar and spelling errors too. I did all of these things to cover my fear, to prove to the world and to myself that I was greater than. The hard truth is that none of that fucking matters. Do the shit that you love now. Don't fucking wait so you can masturbate your own imagined superiority. Just fuck bitches, man. Get drunk. Laugh. Shove things up your ass. It doesn't fucking matter. Just live and don't be a cunt.

>>7576069
>>7576084
http://pastebin.com/wR3cPZEa

>>7576084
Did you do any polishing between submissions? If not, polish it, add it to your website portfolio (you have a website portfolio, right?) and then write something new!

>>7576098
I polished and polished. The feedback I got was empty.

"Just didn't grab me."
"We're looking for more diversity in our fiction."
"No what we're looking for right now."

>>7575694

can you rec some canadian /lit/? all i know is alice munro lel. really like her stuff tho, rural canadian landscapes seem comfy as fuck (they probably aren't irl, but as fiction they make good reading)

I'm majoring in geography but thinking of a course in poetry writing. never read much poetry, read a shit tonne of short stories though and want to get into other forms of literature (poems, novels etc).

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>>7576104
>"We're looking for more diversity in our fiction."
>diversity
>in a story about robots

How would that even work? A transexual black robot?

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>doing anything but STEM
>wanting to work at mcdonalds

I wanted to enroll in some introductory literature course but then I took a bunch of exams before entering freshman year and that was the only one I "passed", so I didn't have to take it.

>>7576179
If that's from Asimov's, they mean they don't want to see another story about robots doing people things. The editor is picky like that.

Come up with something new. I read a story in one a while ago about a spy who controlled an army of cyborg flies with radio waves from a flexible antenna mounted in his back.

>>7576104
Those sound like pretty standard brush-offs. Don't expect actual feedback from slushpile readers; they're jaded from having to read so much stuff that they don't care for.

For what it's worth, what I read of your story (the introduction, I, and part of II) was technically well-written but steeped in both sci-fi and noir cliches. I've read worse stuff in sci-fi magazines and anthologies for sure, but I can see why nobody has pounced at the chance to publish this.

>>7576104
go on an adventure. abandon everything you think you know about the world and rediscover yourself. then write about it. rinse and repeat until success.

hispanic literature
advanced ancient greek
fiction workshop

>>7576246
>steeped in both sci-fi and noir cliches
It's a story about an android Sam Spade. I emulated Dashiell Hammett's style and tried to play on the reader's expectations of robot fiction. After Marlowe's unexpected death at the end of part II, the story shifts to the android's perspective and attempts to address the nature of death from two competing points of view.

The android Leroi, in contrast to established AI cliche, embraces his own mortality and chooses to allow his life to be ended in order to ensure future androids can live.

The human, and antagonist, The Cowboy Killer, is a dark mirror. He simply can not accept mortality, murdering women in an attempt to resurrect his dead wife.

The climax focuses on the competing flawed ideologies and the inherent irony.

But, no one ever gets that far. That's the failure. There's no instant pay off. The ending is satisfying and hits hard, but that simply doesn't matter when readers don't stick around past page 3.

>>7576258
clueless white bougie detected

>>7576092
You can have fun without abandoning taste and reason though

Also Sci-Fi is for teenagers and manchildren

>>7576346
>You can have fun without abandoning taste and reason though
You are not wrong.

>>7576346
>Also Sci-Fi is for teenagers and manchildren
Here, I would argue that, despite what the release of Hollywood action films would have you believe, Sci-Fi and fantasy function as metaphor that allows us to explore the human condition to a greater extent than we might otherwise be permitted. There can be a lot there, should you choose to look for it.

Starship Troopers is either dumb or brilliant, depending on the reader.

>>7576170
margaret atwood, michael ondaatje, rawi hage (read De Niro's Game), david bezmogis (read Natasha)

>>7576170
>>7576397
also anne carson "autobiography of red"

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>>7574398

A seminar on autobiography with Richard Sieburth and a course on avant-garde theory with Boris Groys.

>>7576367
>the "the human condition" card
Stop trying, mate.

>tfw in medschool
>don't have much time to /lit/

>>7576083
Rekt

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>>7576095
>>7576084
What the fuck did I just read? Talk about genre confusion.

>more than 10k words
>short story
Pick one. This isn't a short story, it's a novella.

In regard to the actual content: Leroi is boring and we've seen noir robots before-in fact, while we're at it, why do you have your robot smoking? That's just bad-. Your antagonist comes from nowhere and feels forced, or maybe like a secondhand Frankenstein. Overall the whole affair feels like a second rate Bladerunner.


Oh, and I almost forget the "climax". What a clusterfuck. Your "thoughtful" science fiction tale ends in robot ultraviolence? Why is your detective suddenly beating the shit out of robots? It's worse than fanfiction. Why the fuck did I waste my time reading this garbage?

>>7576281
>murdering women in an attempt to resurrect his dead wife
stuff like this is a red flag to modern scifi publications

>>7577058
That's the sad truth.

>>7576281
If you genuinely want to sell your a story to a modern publication you need the following:

>Female protagonist

>An analog for rascism(anti alien/techno bigots)

>Very simplistic story/message(don't get fancy, don't try to be subtle about anything especially your message. Let you protagonist win against a patriarchal figure.)

>corporations/government is evil message.

This is what sells. It may not be what people actually want, but this is what sells to publishers. If you want to write a story about robots, make your protagonist a female scientist working on robotics.

>>7574398
Philosophy
I guess German would be the most /lit/ related but I had a seminar on Analytic Metaphysics today and I'm pretty hyped up for it

Senior here. Double majoring in English with a focus in Creative Writing, and Marketing.

Pretty much done with school aside from two required marketing courses so as far as /lit/ shit goes, I'm assisting in a freshmen level creative writing course, doing a personal study where I get credit hours to just work on my novel, also taking a survey of popular literature with one of my favorite professors even though the class is super easy and the books are entry-level.

>>7576225
>I read a story in one a while ago about a spy who controlled an army of cyborg flies with radio waves from a flexible antenna mounted in his back.

Am I the only one getting a little tired of how ridiculous scifi is getting? It seems like anymore stories tend to be crazy weird and completely forget to explore philosophy or humanity.

>>7574398
American Literature, 1865-2000
I'm a Geology major, but I wish there was a more "interesting" literature class I could take. Needed the free elective though, so it'll probably work out.

>>7574398
Latin American Literature

-Borges, Cortazar, Rulfo, Vallejo,

With critical theory to accompany it

Jameson, Ramas, other postmodern shtuff

>>7574398

I'm taking a bunch of art history electives for fun, and a /lit/ / film fusion course which is pretty cool.

I graduated with an engineering degree a few years ago and I do open source lit courses and/or reading lists at various universities.

>mfw you plebs actually pay people to lecture you about litrature.

>>7576026
>become a professor if you love literature
As if that's not even a bigger waste of your youth and a more unattainable dream.

>>7574398
Digital Ulysses - 400 level
19th Century American - 300 level
Postcolonial literature - 500 level
Independent study to do research for my thesis - technically 400 level but it's a placeholder

and a physics course on optics. i'm an english major.

>>7576026
>devoting serious time to science fiction writing in the current year

you cast your own lot anon

>>7576095
you use past passive voice too often "he began to walk to the elevator" should be "he stood and walked to the elevator" or something

>>7578807
>>7578807
lmao you're an idiot

>>7576095
>dat monster fight at the end
Not gonna lie but it was pretty shit until that part where the robot goes ham. Rest of it read like a police procedural.

>>7576170
Highly Recommend Anne Carson - Autobiography of Red (Haven't read Red Doc, yet) and The Glass Essay are both good.

Anthony Jarman's "Burn Man on a Texas Porch" is maybe the best Canadian Short Story ever written.

Michael Ondaatje is good - In the Skin of a Lion, The Cinamon Peeler, and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid are all my favorites (The English Patient is also good, obviously). From Ink Lake, the short story collection he organized is good ("The Naming of Albert Johnson," and "The Closing Down of Summer" are both great selections in there)

I've only read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and liked that too. I want to read more of her because she's so prolific.

Also, Gabrielle Roy's The Road Past Altamont is the Canadian My Antonia - I think you'd like that one.

I could just give you my whole reading list if you want.

>>7578871
FYI Autobiography of Red is novel in verse, Billy the Kid is a collection of poetry and Prose, and The Cinnamon Peeler is a book of poems.

If you want Poetry though, Al Purdy and BP Nichol were two of my favorites (on top of Ondaatje).

>>7578883
>>7578871
I really hope you see these Anon, I cried when this class ended.

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>tfw I'm planning on majoring on CompSci
>I like computers but the mere thought of being a code monkey for the rest of my life hurts
>everytime I hear a programmer describing his worklife it sounds like shit
>I really really wanna major in Literature/Philosophy and wouldn't mind becoming a teacher
>everyone tells me it's hard as fuck and I don't want to die of hunger

What do I do, /lit/?
I have to enter college in August, I need advice.

>>7575850
>physics
>taking philosophy

We'll see how long that lasts: you'll either capitulate under the burden of knowing that empiricism is bullshit, or you'll delude yourself for the sake of justifying your terrible life choices.

>>7579208
I'm a physics major and I take philosophy classes as 'fun" classes. It hasn't weighed on me at all. Philosophy and science complement each other. They aren't enemies :)

inb4 you go "hurrr u just dun get it" because we disagree

>>7574398
Don't have semesters, my community college goes by quarters.
Winter quarter started after Winter break ended.

Currently taking Psychology, P.E., and Acting.
Of those, the last is probably the most literary.
The psychology professor doesn't really seem like she knows what she is doing and the book is a bit shit.

>>7579218
>inb4 you go "hurrr u just dun get it" because we disagree

Well, you really don't. Looks to me like you haven't started with the Greeks. Read Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Then read Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and follow that up with familiarizing yourself with Nelson Goodman's "new" problem of induction.

It really doesn't bother me that you want to believe in your own version of metaphysics without reason, but you should at least try and grasp reality here. Personally, I'd rather stick with rationalism and rely on logic.