Writing on the Hipster

This is the title for my proposed ENC1145 course for next. A course that I am designing from scratch. Definately the most fun I've had in any of my pedagogy training so far! Today some folks looked over the proposal and it looks like I'm almost ready to go! I'm optimistic now about the course approved and being able to teach it next year.

Here's the idea: I want to explore countercultural/subcultural phenomenon around the person/character of the hipster. As a class, our critique will center around the idea of whether the hipster is a viable alternative/response to mainstream culture. Or what it, as a phenomenon, might illustrate about culture.

The reading list so far:
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Howl, Allen Ginsberg
"The White Negro," Norman Mailer
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

I'm thinking of tossing in some stuff like Kerouac's "The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," and the movie High Fidelity.

For paper topics, I'm having the kiddos do a short story, a countercultural history, a report on the local "countercultural" music scene, a mix tape compilation with textual notes.

Any suggestions would be much loved :-)

My Victorian Lit. paper got pushed back a bit, so this means I can breath a bit tonight and do reading tomorrow's Avant Garde writing class (Masso's Ava and Cixous' "Laugh of the Medusa").

I hope all is well on Royal Street. Any fresh breezy howling, hmm?