American Literature II  -  From the Civil War to the Present

• Introduction – 160 years in 16 weeks

• The Gilded Age and Beyond + Timeline, Norton Anthology, 1-20 

• A Poetics of Paradox - Emily Dickinson, 82-100, selections

• A Poetics of Paradox - Emily Dickinson ctd.

• PPP, Opening Reflections: Literary History, Realism, Photography
• Recommended site: Modern American Poetry

• Embracing the I and the Cosmos - Walt Whitman, 21-81, selections
  • "Song of Myself" (esp. #1-15), "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "The Wound Dresser," "When Lilacs Last . . . ." 
  • ("Passage to India")

Labor Day  ***** No Class *****

• Embracing the I and the Cosmos - Walt Whitman ctd.
   
• Recommended sites: The Walt Whitman Archive,  Literary Hub

• Patriot Day - Immigration East and West
  • Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” etc. 429-432

• Sui Sin Far, “Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” 549-558
  • Yellow Peril: 19th-Century Scapegoating,” The Margins (2014)

• U.S. Immigration Legislation Online. The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
• PPP, "'The Yellow Peril' - Demonizing the (Eastern) Other" 

• Realism and Naturalism, Norton, 578-594
  • William Dean Howells, from “Editor’s Study” 
  • Henry James, from “The Art of Fiction”
  • Frank Norris, “A Plea for Romantic Fiction,” etc.

• Realism and Naturalism ctd.
  William Dean Howells, "Editha," 314-326
  
  The Muckrackers ___________________________________________________________

• "Local Colorists" of the West
  • Mark Twain, "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” 101-107
  • fyi, Mark Twain on Mormonism I, II
     

    The Transcontinental Railroad _______________________________________________

• "Local Colorists" of the West ctd.
  Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” 306-314
  
  ***** Notebook #1 due in Canvas *****

• Upper-Class and "Realism" - Whose "reality" is it?
  • Henry James, “The Real Thing,” 382-399
     
  • fyi, Henry James, Preface to Volume #18 of the New York Edition (1909)

• Upper-Class and "Realism" ctd.
  • Edith Wharton, “The Other Two,” “Roman Fever,” 524-549
  • Discussion Questions: Edith Wharton, "The Other Two"

• African American Leadership - City & Country, North & South, The Law & Labor
  • Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, 469-479
  • Handout: Booker T. Washington - A Politics of Discrimination? 

• African American Leadership ctd.
  • W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, 559-577

• Versions of American Literary Naturalism
  • Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, 595-611

• Versions of American Literary Naturalism ctd.
  • Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat," 611-630
    
    The Ashcan School ____________________________________________

• American Literature, 1914-1945 + Timeline, 666-87

• PPP, Pedaling to Power—Women on the Wheels of Change

• Ecology, Climate Change, Fiction
  • Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island, 

• Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island,  
  
  Gun Island I  _____________________________________________________________

• Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island 
  
  Gun Island II  ____________________________________________________________

Q & A with Amitav Ghosh, COVID-19 permitting 

• "The Woman Question"
  • Willa Cather, “Neighbour Rosicky,” ("The Sculptor's Funeral"?) 691-724
  • from “The Novel Démeublé 812-814
    
    ***** Notebook #2 due in Canvas *****

• Robert Frost, 735-750, selections

• Robert Frost ctd.
• Carl Sandburg, 772-775

• Modernist Manifestomania, or, the Poetics (and Politics) of High Modernism, 803-816
  • F. T. Marinetti, from “Manifesto of Futurism”
  • Mino Loy, “Feminist Manifesto”
  • Ezra Pound, from “A Retrospect”
    
    Margaret Sanger  _____________________________________________________________

• Modernist Manifestomania ctd.
  • Amy Lowell, 724-728
  • Ezra Pound, 795-80,  Ezra Pound on "In a Station of the Metro,
    
    American Precisionism _________________________________________________________
    
    fyi, Mina Loy. Navigating the Avant Garde

• The Harlem Renaissance 1
  • PPP, The Harlem Renaissance I + II (in fast forward)
  • Jean Toomer, Cane, 967-973    (Claude McKay, 934-938)
     
  • fyi ,Singing to Survive in a Strange Land. The Power of Song

• The Harlem Renaissance 2
  • Jean Toomer, Cane, 967-973
  • Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat,” “How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” 948-960

• The Harlem Renaissance 2
  • Langston Hughes, 1036-1044

• The Harlem Renaissance 2
  • Langston Hughes, ctd.
    
    The Red Scare _______________________________________________________________
    
    fyi, When Langston Hughes Went to Report on the Spanish Civil War  (24 Feb. 2020)
    
    ***** Notebook #3 due in Canvas *****

• C’est La Vie – Americans in Paris
  • (Gertrude Stein, from The Making of Americans, 729-735)
  • Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants,” 1030-1036
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Winter Dreams,” “Babylon Revisited,” 973-1005 

• C’est La Vie – Americans in Paris
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Babylon Revisited" 
    
    The 1930/The Great Depression  _______________________________________________

• Crimes and Misdemeanors - Hollywood & Film Noir
  • James M. Cain, Double Indemnity (1936)

• Crimes and Misdemeanors - Hollywood & Film Noir
  • Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity  (1944, at-home screening)
  • Recommeded: Film Pal -Reel Web
  • purely fyi, The Essential Crime Novels of Los Angeles (Lit Hub, 11 March 2020)
    
    Film Noir  ________________________________________________________________________

Contemporary American Literature, 1945-present (sort of)

• Introduction + Timelines, 1069-1090
  
  ***** Final Paper or FDP due in CANVAS *****

• Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, 1221-1288
  
  McCarthyism & the Red Scare II _______________________________________________________

• Gwendolyn Brooks, 1300-1304
• James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues," 1343-1365
  
  Bebop _________________________________________________________________________
   
• Final Exam Review & Additional Office Hours

Here I am beginning to collect useful websites for our class (in addition to our resource hubs).  Please take a look!

• The Poison Squad, pbs 2020