English 116: Reading List, Fall 1997

Peter Applebome, Dixing Rising
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
E.D.E.N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
William Faulkner, Light in August
Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter
Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome or The Moviegoer
Gloria Naylor, Mama Day or Bailey's Cafe
Albert Murray, South to a Very Old Place and Train Whistle Guitar
Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale
Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina
video week: Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire; Foote, A Trip to Bountiful; Wilson, The Piano Lesson; Dash, Daughters of the Dust

plus numerous secondary sources on reserve


Seminar Members (tentative list, as of July 1997): Joshua Alloy, Anderson Bailey, Ian Bricke, Julie Falk, Eric Freedman, Erika Johansen, Andrew Mast, Larry McDowell, Ilien Tsay, and Sarah Wamester.

email list: jalloy1, abailey1, ibricke1, jfalk1, efreedm1, ejohans2, amast1, lmcdowe1, itsay1, swamest1, pschmid1

Seminar Description

This semester we will study southern American prose (plus a few plays and screenplays) by both blacks and whites. We will also consider theories of Southern literature as a coherent tradition, or at least a long-running argument, about culture, history, race, progress, freedom, tradition, humor, and other matters that southerners tend to understand differently from the rest of the country.
The readings will include representative nineteenth-century works and early twentieth-century classics, then conclude with a variety of post-World War II works. Selected critical readings on Southern literature and culture will accompany the fiction.

We will focus especially on several themes:

• the strong tradition of women's writing and the ways in which it both challenges and is enmeshed within racial and gender stereotypes
• the theme of the "color-line" and the contradictions of racial identity, as explored by both black and white writers
• the powerful continuing relevance of nineteenth-century "ex-slave" or "freedom" narratives for twentieth-century writers, who have frequently returned to and revised and reworked the possibilities that this form represents. We will read 3 especially interesting revisions of this form by 3 contemporary writers, Williams, Johnson, and Bradley
• the "you both can and can't go home again theme": the frequency with with Southern writers use the theme of returning to the South after having left, and the discoveries (about both inner and outer realities) that are made
  

We'll be reading works somewhat out of chronological order, starting with some more contemporary fiction (to give you some of the most engaging readings early) and then plunging backward in time so you can start to make comparisons between older and more contemporary works. There will also be some weeks (especially weeks 2-5) on the syllabus when we read intensively in critical works and cultural theory, in order to give you some history and background to help your reading of fiction.

The reading load for the seminar will often be rather heavy---the equivalent of 2 regular courses. Many secondary readings are sometimes required when shorter works are being read, plus we will tackle LONG novels like A Hidden Hand and Gone With the Wind and Light in August. You will need to budget several hours just about every day of the week to the seminar: so plan ahead. Some weeks later in the seminar (such as the week on Porter) have a much lighter reading load---a good time to use to spend working on your final seminar project (see next paragraph). The compensation for all the hard work: some great readings and (I hope) dynamic discussion.

During the last 2 weeks of the syllabus, students will undertake research projects on subjects of their own choice--further readings in authors on the syllabus, on subjects about souther culture you would like to study further, or on southern authors not included on this version of the syllabus. Research topics must be approved ahead of time by me. In the final seminar meetings, students will give presentations on their research and lead a group discussion of it. You should choose a topic and begin research after you return from Fall break.

A more detailed syllabus (with critical readings to supplement the main readings) will be handed out the week before each seminar and will also be available to you on the syllabus on the English 116 page linked to my home page on the Web. The English 116 Home Page on the Web will also have a link to a full Bibliography for the seminar to consult each week.