Reading Schedule

Complete all assigned reading before coming to class. Please keep in mind that all reading assignments are subject to change. All page numbers refer to the editions/ISBNs that I have ordered.  For some readings, you will download and print the text through the Reserves Direct system, indicated by RD.

Jan. 14 W   Introductions, Syllabus

Jan. 16 F    Frederick Jackson Turner, from “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (Norton C: 1148-53)

Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (Norton C: 21-25)

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Jan. 19 M    MLK Holiday

Regionalism

Jan. 21 W    Mark Twain, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 1-2, 14-20, 31 (Norton C: 108-114, 154-198, 243-249), “The War Prayer” (Norton C: 322-324)

Jan. 23 F    Joel Chandler Harris, “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story” and “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox” (Norton C: 514-516)

Charles Chesnutt, “Goophered Grapevine” (Norton C: 688-696)

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Jan. 26 M    Class canceled

Jan. 28 W    Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron” (Norton C: 522-528)

Kate Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby,” (Reserves Direct) “The Storm” (Norton C: 531-534) 

Realism

Jan. 30 F    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Norton C: 808-819) and “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wall-paper’?” (Norton C: 820)

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Feb. 2 M    Henry James, “Daisy Miller,” (Norton C: 391-429), from “The Art of Fiction” (Norton C: 918-920)

William Dean Howells, from “Henry James, Jr.” (Norton C: 913-915)

Feb. 4 W    Edith Wharton, “The Other Two” (Norton C: 830-843) 

Naturalism

Feb. 6 F    Frank Norris, “Fantaisie Printanière” (Norton C: 931-938)

Theodore Dreiser, from Sister Carrie (Norton C: 938-954)

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Feb. 9 M    Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat” (Norton C: 1000-1016)

Frank Norris, “A Plea for Romantic Fiction” (Norton C: 923-926)

 

Modernism(s): Poetry

Feb. 11 W    Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man,” “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” “Sunday Morning,” “Anecdote of the Jar,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” “Of Modern Poetry” (Norton D: 1439-1456 passim)

Carl Sandburg, all poems (Norton D: 1436-1439)

Marianne Moore, “Poetry” (Norton D: 1531-1533)

Feb. 13 F     William Carlos Williams, “The Young Housewife,” “Portrait of a Lady,” “Queen Anne’s Lace,” “Spring and All,” “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “The Dead Baby,” “The Wind Increases,” “This Is Just To Say,” “The Dance,” “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” (Norton D: 1462-1477 passim)

E. E. Cummings, “in Just–,” “O sweet spontaneous,” “Buffalo Bill’s,” “‘next to of course god america i,’” “pity this busy monster,manunkind” (Norton D: 1807-1816 passim)

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Feb. 16 M    Frost, “The Pasture,” “Mending Wall,” “The Death of the Hired Man,” “After Apple-Picking,” “The Wood-Pile,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Birches,” “Fire and Ice,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Departmental,” “Design,” “The Gift Outright,” “The Figure a Poem Makes” (Norton D: 1388-1410 passim)

Ezra Pound, “A Pact,” “In a Station of the Metro” (Norton D: 1477-1482 passim); from “A Retrospect” (Norton D: 1505-1507)

 

Modernism(s): The Harlem Renaissance

Feb. 18 W    WEB DuBois, from The Souls of Black Folk (Norton C: 894-901)

Paul Laurence Dunbar, “When Malindy Sings,” “An Ante-Bellum Sermon,” “We Wear the Mask,” “Sympathy,” “Harriet Beecher Stowe” (Norton C: 1039-1044)

Feb. 20 F    Nella Larsen, Passing, Part One (1-34)

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Feb. 23 M    Nella Larsen, Passing, Parts Two and Three (35-82)

Feb. 25 W    Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Mother to Son,” “I, Too,” “The Weary Blues,” Mulatto,” “Song for a Dark Girl,” “Visitors to the Black Belt,” “Note on Commercial Theatre,” “Words Like Freedom,” “Madam and Her Madam,” “Madam’s Calling Cards,” “Silhouette,” “Theme for English B” (Norton D: 2026-2037 passim); from “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (Norton D: 1512-1513)

Claude McKay, “The Harlem Dancer,” “Harlem Shadows,” “The Lynching,” “If We Must Die,” “America,” “Outcast” (Norton D: 1686-1689)

Countee Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel,” “Incident,” “Heritage,” “From the Dark Tower” (Norton D: 2060-2065)

Feb. 27 F    Midterm Exam

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Modernism(s): Bridging the Wars

Mar. 2 M    Ernest Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River, Part I,” “Big Two-Hearted River, Part II,” “Now I Lay Me,” “Indian Camp” (Reserves Direct)

Mar. 4 W    F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Winter Dreams” (Norton D: 1822-1839)

Mar. 6 F    Flannery O’Connor, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People” (Norton E: 2521-2543)

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Mar. 9 – 13     Spring Break

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Mar. 16 M    Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Act 1 (Norton E: 2325-2357)

Mar. 18 W    Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Act 2 and Requiem (Norton E: 2357-2392)

Mar. 20 F    James Baldwin, “Going to Meet the Man” (Norton E: 2508-2520)

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Kitchenettes, Confessionals, and Beats: Mid-Century Poetry

Mar. 23 M    Gwendolyn Brooks, “kitchenette building,” “the mother,” a song in the front yard,” “The White Troops Had Their Orders But the  Negroes Looked Like Men,” “We Real Cool,” “The Blackstone Rangers” (Norton E: 2409-2420 passim)

Theodore Roethke, “Weed Puller,” “Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze,” “My Papa’s Waltz,” “Dolor,” “The Waking,” “I Knew a Woman” (Norton E: 2133-2146 passim)

Mar. 25 W     Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” “Footnote to Howl,” “A Supermarket in California” (Norton E: 2574-2584)

Adrienne Rich, “Diving Into the Wreck,” “Five O’Clock, January 2003,” “Wait”

Elizabeth Bishop, “The Fish,” “Sestina,” “In the Waiting Room,” “One Art” (Norton E: 2166-2184 passim)

Mar. 27 F     Sylvia Plath, "Morning Song," “Lady Lazarus,” “Daddy,” “Words,” “Child” (Norton E: 2698-2711 passim)

Robert Lowell, “My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Wilson,” “Memories of West Street and Lepke,” “Skunk Hour,” “For the Union Dead” (Norton E: 2392-2409 passim)

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Mar. 30 M    Catch-up Day

 

Postmodern Pastiche

Apr. 1 W    Donald Barthelme, “The Balloon” (Norton E: 2679-2683)

Hunter S. Thompson, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Norton E: 2492-2493)

Ishmael Reed, “Neo-HooDoo Manifesto” (Norton E: 2844-2848)

Apr. 3 F    Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, 1-30

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Apr. 6 M    Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, 31-79

Apr. 8 W    Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, 80-152

Apr. 10 F    John Cheever, “The Swimmer” (Norton E: 2248-2257)

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Postmodern Multiculuralisms

Apr. 13 M    Philip Roth, “Defender of the Faith” (Norton E: 2720-2743)

 

Apr. 15 W    Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek” (3163-3171)

Gloria Anzaldúa, from Borderlands/La Frontera (Norton E: 2935-2941 [second break], 2947-2955)

Apr. 17 F    Alice Walker, “Everyday Use” (Norton E: 3009-3016)

Toni Morrison, “Recitatif” (Norton E: 2684-2698)

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Apr. 20 M    Jhumpa Lahiri, “Sexy” (Norton E: 3248-3264)

Apr. 22 W    Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, texts TBA

 

Apr. 24 F    Sherman Alexie, all poems (Norton E: 3239-3244), “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock” (Reserves Direct)

 Joy Harjo, all poems (Norton E: 3127-3134)

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Apr. 27 M     Richard Powers, "Modulation' (Reserves Direct)

Closing Thoughts and Course Conclusions

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May 4 M 8:30-11:00 am Final Exam