English 252: Major United States Authors: Realism to Modernism
Class Logistics MWF, 12:00 – 12:50pm, location: Moore Nursing Building, 329
Instructor Info Name-Daniel Hutchins; Office-MHRA 3106
Email: ; Phone-585-269-4211 (cell)
Office Hours: MW 10:30 – 11:30am and by appointment
Required Texts
(1) Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain (Penguin)
(2) The Awakening, Kate Chopin (Penguin)
(3) The Portable Henry James, Henry James (Penguin)
(4) The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois (Penguin Classics)
(5) The Waste Land and Other Poems, T.S. Eliot (Penguin Classics)
(6) As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner (Vintage)
(7) Mule Bone, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
Course DescriptionEnglish 252 provides a survey of literature produced in the United States from 1865 to World War II.Our aim will be to consider how literature has shaped the struggles of the United States over democracy, race, gender, and religion. We will also consider varying and often competing conceptions of U.S. national identity. We will read the work of a wide range of authors, including George Washington Cable, Mark Twain, Henry James, Kate Chopin, W.E.B. DuBois, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston and Flannery O’Connor. Requirements will include two essays, electronic postings, two exams, and regular participation in class discussion.
Class Format English 252 is a seminar. This is a discussion-based course; it is not a lecture course. What we learn will be driven primarily by the questions, comments, ideas and energies that you bring to our discussions. In other words, we will learn the material in this class by actively engaging it and each other in our regular meetings.
Writing Assignments We will be drafting two formal essays together (approximately 5-7 pages each). It’s expected that these essays will represent your very best, most careful and considered work. In addition, the course will include a mid-term and a final (both equally weighted) which will consist of passage identification / short responses. Finally, I will, from time to time, begin class with a short reading quiz. The purpose of these quizzes is to make sure you are doing the reading.
Course Rules and Procedures
(1)Attendance at each class meeting is required. An absence will be excused only if it’s negotiated in advance or if there is a medical emergency. If necessary, you will be permitted one free unexcused absence; each additional unexcused absence will have an impact on your participation grade. A total of 10 absences will result in you failing the class automatically.
(2) You are required to do every last iota of the reading and writing assigned, exactly in the format requested, and it needs to be totally done by the time class starts. There is no such thing as ‘falling a little behind’ in the course reading; either you’ve done your homework or you haven’t. Chronic lack of preparation (which, let’s face it, is easy to spot) will lower your final letter grade.
(3)Even in a seminar course like this one, it seems a little silly to require participation. Some students who are cripplingly shy, or who can’t always formulate their best thoughts and questions in the rapid back-and-forth of a group discussion, are nevertheless good, serious students. On the other hand, our class can’t really function if there isn’t student participation – it will become me lecturing for 50 minutes, which (trust me) is something we all want to avoid. There is, therefore, a percentage of the final grade that will concern the quantity and quality of your participation in class discussions. But the truth is that I’m way more concerned about creating an in-class environment in which all students feel totally free to say what they think, ask questions, object, criticize, request clarification, return to a previous subject, respond to someone else’s response, etc. Clinically shy students, or those whose best, most pressing questions and comments occur to them only in private, should do their discussing with me solo, outside class. If my scheduled office hours don’t work for you, please call or email me so that we can make an appointment for a different meeting time.
(4)Your two formal essays must be typed and printed in regular font. They must be double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around, and stapled. The first page of your paper should have a title – all papers should have a title – as well as your name, the course and the date. Your last name and page number must appear in the upper-right corner of p.2 and every page thereafter.
(5)An extension on an essay will be granted only under truly extraordinary circumstances, and only if the extension is negotiated in advance – not the day or even the day before the paper is due. Having too much work or exams in other courses is not a valid reason to ask for an extension.
(6)Part of your grade for written work will depend on your document’s presentation. ‘Presentation’ has to do with evidence of care, of adult competence in written English, and of compassion for your reader. Your essays must be proofread and edited for obvious typos and misspellings, basic errors in grammar/usage/punctuation, and so on. You are welcome to contact me with questions about proofreading, grammar, usage, etc., as you’re working on revising and editing your essays. In addition, I strongly recommend you take advantage of the Writing Center: 3211 MHRA. Papers that appear sloppy, semiliterate, or incoherent will be heavily penalized, and in severe cases you’ll be required to resubmit a sanitized version in order to receive any credit for the essay at all.
(7)You’re required to bring all relevant materials with you to each class session. Please don’t show up to class without a copy of the text(s) we will be discussing.
(8)Academic Honesty.All work that you do for this class must be original, meaning that you alone are responsible for producing it. Plagiarism, the use of an idea or phrase from another source without proper recognition of that source, will not be tolerated. Copying or obtaining assignments from another student is also a form of plagiarism, as is cutting and pasting material from elsewhere (even if you rearrange the words or substitute synonyms). If you commit any act of academic dishonesty, you will fail the course. Please read the UNCG policy regarding academic honesty for all incidents of plagiarism:
Weighted Determinants of Final Grade
Essays 1 and 2 (5-7pp): 20% each
In-Class Mid-term and Final: 15% each
Reading Quizzes: 15%
Attendance, preparation, quality of class participation, alacrity of carriage: 15%
(Grading scale breakdown):
A / 95 = Mind-blowingly good
A-/ 92 = Very good
B+ / 88 = Good
B / 85 = High-average
B-/82 = Average
C+/78=Low-average
C/75= Noticeably subpar
C-/72 or below = Direly poor, we need to talk
Weekly Class and Reading Schedule
Please Note: Reading assignments appear the day they are due.
Week 1
Mon. 1/10: First day of class. Overview of Syllabus and Course Objectives.
Wed. 1/12: Café des Exiles, George Washington Cable (.pdf)
Fri: 1/14: “The Freedman’s Case in Equity” (.pdf)
Week 2
Mon 1/17: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day. No Class.
Wed 1/19: Benito Cereno, Herman Melville (.pdf)
Fri 1/21: Benito Cereno (.pdf)
Week 3
Mon 1/24: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
Wed 1/26: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
Fri 1/28: Pudd’nhead Wilson
Week 4
Mon 1/31: The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Wed 2/2: The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Fri 2/4: Kate Chopin + Walt Whitman. Critical perspectives.
Week 5
Mon 2/7: The Beast in the Jungle Henry James
Wed 2/9: The Beast in the Jungle, Henry James
Fri 2/11: Class Cancelled – read The Turn of the Screw
Week 6
Mon 2/14: The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
Wed 2/16: Henry James: critical perspectives – New Criticism. Frank Norris, The Responsibilities of the Novelist (.pdf)
Fri 2/18: Henry James, Walt Whitman, Baudelaire (distributing topics for Paper 1)
Week 7
Mon 2/21: The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Du Bois & “Atlanta Exposition Address,” Booker T. Washington (.pdf)
Wed 2/23: The Souls of Black Folk (excerpts)
Fri 2/25: The Souls of Black Folk (excerpts)
Week 8
Mon 2/28: Harlem Renaissance poetry (selection, .pdf)
Wed 3/2: Exam Review
Fri 3/4: Midterm Exam (Paper 1 due)
Week 9
Mon 3/7 – Fri 3/11: No Class. Spring Break.
Week 10
Mon 3/14: The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
Wed 3/16: The Waste Land
Fri 3/18: T.S. Eliot poetry and criticism
Week 11
Mon 3/21: Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Wed 3/23: As I Lay Dying
Fri 3/25: As I Lay Dying
Week 12
Mon 3/28: As I Lay Dying + critical perspectives
Wed 3/30: Modernist poetry: W. C. Williams, ee cummings (pdf)
Fri 4/1: Witherspoon Gallery Visit
Week 13
Mon 4/4: Modernist Art, Picasso, Matisse, Dada
Wed 4/6:
Fri 4/8: (distributing topics for paper 2)
Week 14
Mon 4/11: Mule Bone
Wed 4/13: Mule Bone (controversy and criticism)
Fri 4/15: Flannery O’Connor, selected stories (pdf)
Week 15
Mon 4/18: Flannery O’Connor, selected stories (pdf)
Wed 4/20: Final Exam Review
Fri 4/22: Spring Holiday. No Class.
Week 16
Mon 4/25: Final Exam (paper 2 due in class)