English E-175: Southern Literature and Culture in the U.S. Spring 2010

Transcription

1 English E-175: Southern Literature and Culture in the U.S. Spring 2010 Prof. John Stauffer: Barker Center 267, 12 Quincy Street Prof. Jason Stevens: Barker Center 070, 12 Quincy Street Adena Spingarn, Head Teaching Fellow: Barker Center 121, 12 Quincy Street COURSE DESCRIPTION: This interdisciplinary course examines the rich tradition of Southern literature and culture in the United States from the antebellum era to the present. We construe culture widely to mean the ways of life as represented by fiction, religion, history, cinema, music, theater, photography, and poetry. Since the antebellum period, the South has defined itself in a defensive and sometimes belligerent posture, often as a separate people, in relation to the United States. We explore the South, as imagined by white and black Southerners, and focus on how the art and culture of this region functions ideologically, religiously, politically, rhetorically, and aesthetically in order to imagine constructions of Southern and national identities. The course is part of the Harvard Extension School's Distance Education Program. Recorded lectures will be made available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Weekly online discussion forums will take place at the course website. Please see the Distance Ed. website for information on the program, FAQs, details on how to view lectures and technical support: REQUIRED TEXTS: [For sale on Amazon or abebooks.com, and at the Harvard COOP under Culture and Belief 35 and/or United States in the World 35. Additional texts will be posted on the course website.] Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War (1961)(Harvard Press) Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)(Bedford) Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)(Norton) I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (1930)(LSU Press) Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox (2008)(Viking) Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)(Norton) Gone with the Wind (1939) (DVD) Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men (1946) (Harcourt) William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)(Vintage) Flannery O Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955) (Harcourt) Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)(DVD) Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945)(Library of America) Robert Duvall, The Apostle (1992) (DVD)

2 2 COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Weekly readings, ed questions, online discussion forum (30%) Assignment due on May 12 at 5pm EST; proposal due April 9 at 5pm EST (70%) This course assignment can take one of two forms: 1. Create your own Southern literature, and include a 3-5 page critical essay analyzing it within a formal and historical tradition. 2. A 12 page essay, including 4 primary and secondary sources. [Please see course website for more details on requirements and the assignment] COURSE SCHEDULE: Week One: What IS Southern Literature and Why Is It Distinctive Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War (1961) C. Vann Woodward, The Irony of Southern History George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! (1857) (selection) Lecture (January 25): Introduction Lecture (January 27): Southern Nationalism, Irony, and Morality Week Two: The Slave South Versus the Free North Frederick Douglass, Narrative (1845) Edgar Allan Poe, William Wilson ( ) Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) Edgar Allan Poe, Murders in the Rue Morgue Lecture (February 1): Property in Humans and Prisoners of War Lecture (February 3): The Southern Gothic, I Week Three: Tall Tales, Interracial Bonding, Humor and Violence, Part I Johnson Jones Hooper, Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs (1845) Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy and The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story (1881) Charles Chesnutt, Her Virginia Mammy (1899) Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865), The Private History of a Campaign That Failed (1885) Lecture (February 8): The Forms and Uses of Southern Humor Lecture (February 10): Picturesque Interracial Friendship

3 3 Week Four: Tall Tales, Interracial Bonding, Humor and Violence, Part II Note: We have lecture on Friday February 19 Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) Lecture (February 15): No Lecture President s Day Lecture (February 17): The Problem of Race in Huckleberry Finn Lecture (February 19): The Elusive Quest for Freedom Week Five: How the South Won the War and Why It Matters Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt (2008) D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation (1915)(DVD) Lecture (February 22): Creating the Lost Cause Lecture (February 24): The Southernization of American History Week Six: Southern Historiography and Aesthetics From I ll Take My Stand: Introduction ; John Crowe Ransom, Reconstructed but Unregenerate ; Allen Tate, Remarks on Southern Religion ; Robert Penn Warren, The Briar Patch W.J. Cash, The Mind of the South (1941), Introduction, Book Three, Chapter 2 ( Of Returning Tensions and the Years the Cuckoo Claimed ) Lecture (March 1): Agrarian Apologetics in the New South Lecture (March 3): The New Mind of the Old South Week Seven: Remembering the South in the Harlem Renaissance Jean Toomer, Cane (1923) Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (1935), Part I ( Folk Tales ), Chs. 1-2 Lecture (March 8): Southern Poetics and Anti-Lynching Lecture (March 10): Southern Dignity Week Eight: (Spring Break)

4 4 Begin Robert Penn Warren, All the King s Men (1946) Week Nine: Marketing Nostalgia: Legends of the Old and New South Gone with the Wind (1939)(DVD) Continue Robert Penn Warren, All the King s Men (1946) Lecture (March 22): The Legend of the New South Lecture (March 24): The Legacies of Gone with the Wind Week Ten: Southern Politics, Populism, and the Problem of Evil Finish Robert Penn Warren, All the King s Men (1946) Lecture (March 29): Southern Politics and the Problem of Evil Lecture (March 31): Neo-Confederate Pragmatism Week Eleven: Faulkner s Counter-Myth and Southern Modernism William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929) James Baldwin, Faulkner and Desegregation (1955) Lecture: (April 5): Faulkner s Anti-Modern Modernism Lecture: (April 7): The Past Isn t Dead: It s Not Even Past Project Proposals due April 9 at 5pm EST Week Twelve: Varieties of the Postwar Grotesque Flannery O Connor, The Artificial Nigger, Good Country People, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O Lecture (April 12): O Connor s Catholic Grotesque and the Christ-Haunted South Lecture (April 14): Welty s Refined Grotesque Week Thirteen: Desire and Sexual Transgression in the New South A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (DVD)

5 5 Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (original play) (1947) Lecture (April 19): The Language of Southern Desire Lecture (April 21): Unspeakable Things Unspoken Week Fourteen: Awakenings: Existentialism and Pentecostalism Richard Wright, Black Boy (1937), first half Robert Duvall, The Apostle (1992)(DVD) Lecture (April 26): Words as Sacred Weapons, 1 Lecture (April 28): Words as Sacred Weapons, 2 Final Projects Due on Wednesday, May 12 at 5:00PM EST