ENGL 293 - Topics in American Literature

FDR: HL
Credits: 3-4
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter, Spring

Winter 2013 topic:

ENGL 293: Topics in American Literature: Form and Freedom in Modern American Poetry (3). Robert Frost once said that writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net. This course explores that statement by studying several modern American poets. We examine varieties of free verse from Walt Whitman through Sylvia Plath and compare those writers’ works to poets like Frost and Richard Wilbur, who preferred traditional forms. We also see how individual poets have worked with both form and freedom throughout their careers. In the process the course studies many verse forms, including sonnets, villanelles and sestinas, and concludes by sampling some contemporary experimental approaches. (HL) Brodie.

Fall 2012 topics:

ENGL 293-01: Topics in American Literature: American Environmental Poetry (3). In this course we read a selection of works by American poets from the seventeenth century to the present, but the majority of our readings are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We ask how “nature poetry” becomes “environmental poetry,” and what the difference in terminology signifies. We develop skills in formal and thematic analysis of poems. We ask how we read poems from different periods both within their own historical context and within our present historical context. Poets include Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Gary Snyder, Simon Ortiz, and Pattiann Rogers. (HL) Warren.

ENGL 293-02: Topics in American Literature: Recent American Fiction (3). This course examines writing from the past quarter of a century, including novels, short stories, and nonfiction, with an emphasis on works that have achieved immediate critical acclaim. Writers represented are likely to include: Don DeLillo, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Safran Foer, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, David Foster Wallace. (HL) Crowley.

ENGL 293-03: Topics in American Literature: American Short Story (3). A study of the evolution of the short story in America from its roots, both domestic and international, tracing the main branches of its development in the 20th century.  We also explore more recent permutations of the genre, such as magical realism, new realism, and minimalism.  Having gained an appreciation for the history and variety of this distinctly modern genre, we focus our attention on the work of two American masters of the form, contemporaries and erstwhile friends who frequently read and commented on each other’s work–Hemingway and Fitzgerald. We examine how they were influenced by their predecessors and by each other and how each helped to shape the genre.

ENGL 293-03: Topics in American Literature: American Short Story (3). A study of the evolution of the short story in America from its roots, both domestic and international, tracing the main branches of its development in the 20th century.  We also explore more recent permutations of the genre, such as magical realism, new realism, and minimalism.  Having gained an appreciation for the history and variety of this distinctly modern genre, we focus our attention on the work of two American masters of the form, contemporaries and erstwhile friends who frequently read and commented on each other’s work–Hemingway and Fitzgerald. We examine how they were influenced by their predecessors and by each other and how each helped to shape the genre. (HL) Oliver.

ENGL 293-04: Topics in American Literature: Subverting Stereotypes: Modern Appalachian Literature (3). The stereotype of the Appalachian dweller–a dirty, lazy, ignorant, moonshining, feuding, but musical and comic fundamentalist–is so inaccurate one wonders how it was contrived, as well as why anyone would believe it. However, the residents of the Appalachian Mountains have long struggled to throw off the images foisted upon them in film and print. In this course we examine the counter-narratives presented by recent fiction writers and poets of the region in their effort to probe beyond the highlanders’ notorious peculiarities and reach the recognizably human mysteries–diversity, humor, spiritual conflict, divided loyalties–which complicate the nature and experiences of the native mountain people. Our reading includes work by the Afrilachian poets, Charles Wright, Ann Pancake, Denise Giardina, David Huddle, Thomas Wolfe, Kathryn Byer and others, and we supplement the reading with films and music. Each student is required to keep a reading journal, make an oral presentation to the class, and write both a short paper and a longer, research-based paper, with an option to substitute creative work for the short paper. (HL) Smith.