A Room of One's Own (deadline: 4/7)

Answer ONE of the following questions with 200-250 words:

1) Conventional wisdom tends to lead us to assume that art belongs to a certain abstract and transcendental realm that is detached from life and the concrete conditions of its production. How does Woolf subvert this kind of belief in A Room of One's Own?

2) How does Woolf complicate the idea/tradition of fiction writing and of history making, which used to be considered as gender-neutral in the history of humanity?

3) Why does Woolf assert that "It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple"? Why does she insist that "one must be woman-manly or man-womanly" (2489)? What author or authors illustrate this kind of androgynous mind for Woolf, and why?

Heart of Darkness (deadline: 3/22)

Answer ONE of the following questions with 200-250 words:

1) How does Conrad's Heart of Darkness radically cast in doubt epistemological and ethical certainties that were believed by his Victorian predecessors?

2) If the focus on the unconscious can be said to be one of the main characteristics of modernist literature, how is this reflected in Conrad's Heart of Darkness?

3) In Heart of Darkness, certain characters are flat, while certain characters are round.  Give us at least one example of each type of character. Explain the reason why they are flat or round.