Spring 2013 Course: “Thrill and Dread in the American Century”
The new semester at Marquette begins tomorrow, and I’ll be teaching the second half of the American literature survey sequence. The full syllabus is on my website here, but you can see the course theme and provisional schedule below…
ENGLISH 2520-101:
INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LITERATURE 2
Thematic Title: Thrill and Dread in the American Century
MWF 10:00-10:50 AM
“To be modern,” Marshall Berman wrote, “is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.” This course traces the development of this tension between hope and disaster, between “thrill” and “dread,” in American literature since the Civil War. In this course we will examine and interrogate this explosive sense of what it means to be “modern” with respect to themes of history and futurity, identity and difference, politics, community, war, empire, and the environment. From the private lives of individuals and families to the very public relationships that exist in and between diverse communities to the nation’s assent to global superpower status in the context of a nuclear-powered Cold War, we will find America in the post-Civil-War period understands itself as a place where anything can happen—in good ways, and in bad.
PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE
Any changes to this schedule will be announced in class as they become necessary.
Students should come to class prepared to discuss the listed texts or chapters.
Monday |
January 14 |
Introduction to the Course |
Wednesday |
January 16 |
NA-C: Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” |
Friday |
January 18 |
NA-C: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-paper” |
Monday |
January 21 |
MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY—NO CLASS |
Tuesday |
January 22 |
DROP/ADD ENDS |
Wednesday |
January 23 |
NA-C: Pauline Hopkins, “A Dash for Liberty” NA-C: James Weldon Johnson, “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” |
Friday |
January 25 |
NA-C: Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat” |
Monday |
January 28 |
NA-C: Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” NA-C: “The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee” |
Wednesday |
January 30 |
NA-D: “Modernist Manifestos”: F.T. Marinetti, Mina Loy, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes |
Friday |
February 1 |
NA-D: Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, poems |
Monday |
February 4 |
NA-D: Langston Hughes, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, poems |
Wednesday |
February 6 |
NA-D: William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” FIRST PAPER WORKSHOP DAY |
Friday |
February 8 |
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” [ARES] |
Monday |
February 11 |
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” [ARES] |
Wednesday |
February 13 |
James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” [ARES] |
Friday |
February 15 |
Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” [D2L] Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, foreword and chapters 1-5 |
Monday |
February 18 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, chapters 6-13 FIRST PAPER DUE |
Wednesday |
February 20 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, chapters 14-23 |
Friday |
February 22 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, chapters 24-33 |
Monday |
February 25 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, part 2, chapters 1-7 |
Wednesday |
February 27 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, part 2, chapters 8-16 |
Friday |
March 1 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, part 2, chapters 17-24 |
Monday |
March 4 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, part 2, chapters 25-31 |
Wednesday |
March 6 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, part 2, chapters 31-36 |
Friday |
March 8 |
NA-E: John Cheever, “The Swimmer” |
Monday |
March 11 |
SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS |
Wednesday |
March 13 |
SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS |
Friday |
March 15 |
SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS |
Monday |
March 18 |
NA-E: Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”; “Footnote to Howl”; “A Supermarket in California”; America” [D2L] |
Wednesday |
March 20 |
NA-E: Sylvia Plath, Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka, poems |
Friday |
March 22 |
CLASS CANCELLED / CONFERENCES |
Monday |
March 25 |
NA-E: Donald Barthelme, “The Balloon” SECOND PAPER WORKSHOP |
Wednesday |
March 27 |
NA-E: Raymond Carver, “Cathedral” |
Friday |
March 29 |
EASTER HOLIDAY—NO CLASS |
Monday |
April 1 |
Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” [ARES] |
Wednesday |
April 3 |
NA-E: Toni Morrison, “Recitatif” |
Friday |
April 5 |
CLASS CANCELLED / MOVIE NIGHT! TBA |
Monday |
April 8 |
NA-E: Adrienne Rich, Galway Kinnell, Yusef Komunyaka, poems SECOND PAPER DUE |
Wednesday |
April 10 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 1-5 |
Friday |
April 12 |
CLASS CANCELLED / MOVIE NIGHT! TBA LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW |
Monday |
April 15 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 6-9 |
Wednesday |
April 17 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 10-13 |
Friday |
April 19 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 14-16 |
Monday |
April 22 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 17-19 |
Wednesday |
April 24 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 20-22 |
Friday |
April 26 |
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, chapters 23-25 |
Monday |
April 29 |
NA-E: Junot Díaz, “Drown” |
Wednesday |
May 1 |
Wells Tower, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” [ARES] |
Friday |
May 3 |
Joe Wenderoth, “Letters to Wendy’s” [D2L] FINAL PAPER WORKSHOP LAST DAY OF CLASS |
Tuesday |
May 7 |
FINAL PAPERS DUE BY DIGITAL DROPBOX BY 10 AM |
[…] * In case you missed it last night, my course this semester: “Thrill and Dread in the American Century.” […]
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