Course Overview

This class will provide graduate students with opportunities to engage in advanced research in topics in American literature.

Objectives

Over the semester, I expect students to achieve the following goals:

• Understand and interpret influential American literary texts and use critical works about them to enhance this understanding.

• Be able to discuss the importance of these texts in terms of literary techniques, historical contexts, engagement with political questions, and other issues.

• Write convincing arguments about how we should interpret these texts in exams and an extensive research paper.

Expectations

In order to accomplish this goal, students must

• Read the required books carefully.

• Attend class—show up on time and prepared to discuss the readings assigned for that day. Students have a responsibility to plan their schedules to avoid excessive conflicts with course requirements. Excessive absences will have a negative impact on the grade that you receive in this course. Excusable absences include "subpoenas, jury duty, military duty, religious observances, illness, bereavement for immediate family and NCAA varsity college athletics." Please contact the instructor about anticipated absences in order to minimize their influence on your coursework. For more information on excused absences, see http://www.d.umn.edu/vcaa/ExcusedAbsence.html.

• Demonstrate a clear understanding of these works in exams and paper assignments.

• Respect fellow students and refrain from behavior that might impair their learning opportunities. Any behavior that substantially and repeatedly interrupts the instructor's ability to teach or the students' ability to learn will result in appropriate penalties. Disruptive behavior includes inappropriate use of communications technology in the classroom, such as ringing cell phones, text-messaging, watching videos, playing computer games, doing email, or surfing the Internet on one's computer instead of note-taking or other instructor-sanctioned activities. For further clarification of UMD policies in this regard, consult UMD's Student Conduct Code at "http://www1.umn.edu/regents/policies/academic/Student_Conduct_Code.pdf".

• UMD instructors and students have a responsibility to maintain a learning environment that is, as stated in the Teaching and Learning Policy, "respectful of the rights and freedoms of all members, and promotes a civil and open exchange of ideas." The full policy is available at "http://www.d.umn.edu/vcaa/TeachingLearning.html".

Academic dishonesty tarnishes the reputation of the University of Minnesota Duluth and discredits the accomplishments of its students. Because the university is committed to providing students every possible opportunity to grow in mind and spirit, it must insist on an environment of trust, honesty, and fairness. Consequently, all members of the academic community must regard any act of academic dishonesty as a serious offense. In keeping with this ideal, this course will adhere to UMD's Student Academic Integrity Policy, which is available online at "http://www.d.umn.edu/conduct/integrity/". This policy sanctions students engaging in academic dishonesty with penalties up to and including expulsion from the university for repeat offenders.

Individuals who have any disability, either permanent or temporary, which might influence their capacity to perform in this class, should inform me at the start of the semester. I can make special adaptations of teaching methods, assignments, materials, or testing as required to provide for equitable participation in the course. The Disability Resources Center is also available to assist students with disabilities. It is located in 258 Kirby Student Center and on the web at "http://www.d.umn.edu/access/".

Required Texts

Carver, Raymond. What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. New York: Knopf, Doubleday, 1989. Print.

Dickey, James. Deliverance. 1970. New York: Random House, 1994. Print.

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. 1930. New York: Knopf, Doubleday, 1991. Print.

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong. New York: Knopf, Doubleday, 2000. Print.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men. 1935. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.

Jewett, Sarah Orne. The Country of the Pointed Firs. 1896. New York: Knopf, Doubleday, 1954. Print.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Supplementary Texts

Allen, Paula Gunn. "Special Problems in Teaching Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony." American Indian Quarterly 23.4 (Fall 1999): 379-86. Print.

Brodhead, Richard. Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1993. Print.

Campbell, Donna. Resisting Regionalism: Gender and Naturalism in American Fiction, 18850-1915. Athens: Ohio U. P., 1997.

Chase, Richard. The American Novel and Its Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1957. Print.

Coltelli, Laura. Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak. Lincoln, NE: U. of Nebraska P., 1990. Print.

Evans, Brad. Before Cultures: The Ethnographic Imagination of American Literature, 1865-1920. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 2005. Print.

Fetterly, Judith and Marjorie Pryse. Writing out of Place: Regionalism, Women, and American Literary Culture. Champaign: U. of Illinois P., 2005. Print.

Folks, Jeffrey. "The Kindness of Strangers: The Fiction of Kent Haruf." Modern Age 51.2 (Spring 2009): 123-133. Print.

Gates, Henry Louis and Kwame Anthony Appiah, eds. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad, 1993. Print.

Hardwig, Bill. Upon Provincialism: Southern Literature and National Periodical Culture, 1870-1900. Charlottesville, VA: U. of Virginia P., 2013. Print.

Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. Champaign: U. of Illinois P., 1977. Print.

Jehlen, Myra. Class and Character in Faulkner's South. New York: Columbia U. P., 1997. Print.

Meisenhelder, Susan Edwards. Hitting a Straight Stick with a Crooked Stick: Race and Gender in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston. Tuscaloosa: U. of Alabama P., 1999. Print.

Kaplan, Amy. "Nation, Region, and Empire." The Columbia History of the American Novel. Ed. Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia U. P., 1991. 240-266. Print.

Minter, David. William Faulkner: His Life and Work. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1980. Print.

Nesset, Kirk. The Stories of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study. Athens: Ohio U. P., 1995. Print.

Thesing, William B. and Theda Wrede, eds. The Way We Read James Dickey: Critical Approaches for the Twenty-First Century. Columbia, SC: U. of South Carolina P., 2009. Print.