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What Will Suffice: American 20th Century Literature Monday and Wednesday , 10:00 - 11:30, Somewhere Course descriptionThis course will pick up, roughly, where Apocalyptic Hope left off last year: out of the American Renaissance, into the Gilded Age, the Modernist period, and through the two world wars, tracing the development of the “American” as it faces, often reluctantly and anyway never without a fight, the inevitability of the modern. We will begin with Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – a book Hemingway once famously called the beginning of all American literature; from there we’ll go on to consider the works of writers and poets as various as Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost William Carlos Williams, Sherwood Anderson William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, Ralph Ellison and others. The point of this course -- like that of its sister course, Apocalyptic Hope -- is to read as much as we can; to develop as broad an understanding as possible of both canonical and non-canonical 20th century literature, and to consider how that literature has helped to shape not just the literature that followed it, but who we are in the 21st century Note: this will NOT be a writing seminar: it will involve far too much reading for that. Consider this fair warning: the reading load for this class will be heavy – averaging 250 pages a week. Students still working on the Writing Requirement, or students taking another heavy reading or writing course, should take this course another time. Required TextsRequirementsThis course will be reading-centered, so the chief requirement is that you make a commitment to keeping up with the reading, and that you come to class prepared to discuss what you have read. You will also be asked to write a two-page (and no more than two-page) reading response for every class: that will amount to a substantial pile of writing by the end of the semester, but spread out in small stages. At times I will assign topics for these responses, but more often I’ll allow you to respond in whatever way seems appropriate to you, as long as you keep your responses focused on the texts you’re reading. The idea is to develop your own written conversation with the authors you’re reading: so, while I don’t expect “formal papers” – i.e., researched and lengthy – I do expect you to write clear, articulate and original responses to the texts and to the things people are saying about them. This daily writing will often form the basis for our class discussions, and will be graded on a check/plus/minus basis. As much as is possible, I would like our class discussions to be student-led and student-generated. With that in mind, I will divide the class into groups in the first week, and groups will rotate responsibility for centering class discussions and directing outside reading. GradingYour grade for the course will be based on the following percentages:
If you miss more than three daily responses, I will ask you to drop the class. After that, your grade will start to suffer. You will probably hear it moaning. CalendarHolidays are in yellow. All dates subject to change on not much more than the mere whim of the instructor, who is as whimsical as a handbag full of rainbows.
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