TEXTS:

• Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter --make sure you get the BEDFORD, edited by Ross Murfin, because we will read the articles that come with it

• Dickinson, Final Harvest --selections from her Complete Poems

• Faulkner, As I Lay Dying --Vintage Int'l--only nine bucks

• Wright, Native Son

• Morrison, Beloved

OTHER READING: Other required texts will be at the Reserve Desk at the Undergrad Library. Most of the primary stuff can be found in anthologies of American Lit, if you have one.

PURPOSE: This is an introductory course; it should give you lots of information about several famous American writers and works. This information is important not purely for passing this class, but because whether or not the books themselves are "great" or "true" or "required," so many people have read them that they have become part of our culture (academically and otherwise). This makes them fun and interesting to grapple with, and to take over for ourselves. But we are not here to memorize what other people have thought about these texts; we must appropriate them, re-invent them for ourselves (of course, they will be doing the same to us).

This class is also meant to immerse you in the type of reading and writing and interpretation that other upper division literature classes require. I happen to believe that reading and interpreting literature is a worthwhile activity, too, not just because the books are good, but because learning to read actively is an essential tool in living a full and meaningful life and trying to make sense out of random experience. It may also help a person get or keep an enjoyable, challenging job.

GOALS: We can't hope to master "American Literature" in this course, but we can learn and practice how to read texts (primary and secondary) carefully and analytically, to understand (and maybe utilize) various different theoretical approaches to literature, and articulate thoughts about a text clearly, in discussion and on paper. Long-term, I want you to avoid becoming road-kill on The Information Highway.

The main tools we will use in achieving these lofty goals will be writing and discussion. Discussions must be open and honest and rigorous, so that everyone in the class can benefit from the specific viewpoints of each individual reader; that means coming to class prepared, and participating in group and class discussions. "Participating" means listening carefully, asking questions, and making your view public now and then.

ASSUMPTIONS: There will be a theoretical slant to this class: our starting and ending point will be TEXT and meaning--not the author, or background, or characters. Authors and characters are "the opposite of people," as the Player says in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. They don't really exist. The TEXT exists, thanks to readers like us, and relates to and interacts with historical events and documents, other texts, political & social forces, etc.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Come to class. We will spend most of our time having discussions, either in small groups or as a class (you talk), as opposed to listening to a lecture (I talk, you listen). So there won't really be notes that you can simply memorize for the test.

• Midterm: a selection of lots and lots of ID questions to choose from: for a certain number of these, you will have to give a short answer discussing or interpreting the passage (Feb. 25).
• Final: take-home essay (really a short paper) on Beloved. Due May 6.
• Quizzes: little essays to make sure you read the books carefully and on time.
• Little Paper: From a list of six short stories you will pick one and spend around five pages analyzing and interpreting some aspect of it (due Feb. 18).
• Big Paper: A sophisticated interpretation of something we've read, using some outside sources: an article on the text, on a specific literary theory, on a critical approach, or on an appropriate historical event/period; OR primary sources like historical documents, letters, other texts by the author or from the period, etc. Around eight pages: due April 15. Ideally you will be accumulating possible paper topics as the semester progresses, and doing the research early.