We will be exploring the aesthetic and social concerns that shape the novels of the United States from the early twentieth century to the present.  With Einstein's special theory of relativity, jazz, the transcontinental railroad, two World Wars, and a depression, the horizons of America has expanded through incoming new ideas and immigrants and outgoing expats and journeys abroad.  How have novelists created their textual world in such a setting?

We meet Tuesdays 1-3 p.m. and Wednesdays 11-12.

Discussion of the texts will be a big part of this class and you are encouraged to express your opinions, observations and ask questions. This is an important way to learn and increase your understanding about the readings.  Use this opportunity in class to share your ideas and expand your perspectives!

There will be weekly (no more than 1 page) reading responses and a 15-page final paper, also occasional screenings and presentations.

Readings may include:

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930)
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Also selections and secondary material from T. S. Eliot, Gertude Stein, John Dos Passos, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hugh Kenner, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Lawrence Rainey, Wendy Steiner.

Go through as much of the material posted on this page as you can before the semester begins. It will be very helpful in giving you a better grasp of things once we begin discussing things in earnest.

Blackboard Academic Suite for this semester's class.

Last year's syllabus (Word file)

• Klarer, Mario.  An Introduction to Literary Studies.  2nd ed.  London: Routledge, 2004. (CL  820.9 K63I)

• Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert Penn Warren.  Understanding Fiction.  3rd ed.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. (library has 2nd ed.)

• Undergraduate Guide for Studying Literature (How well do you understand what you have read?, keeping a reading journal, critical terms for discussing literature, guidelines for writing essays, what the grade on your essay means, what to do with your marked essay, marking symbols and abbreviations; also has downloadable pdf file)

• Literary Resources on the Net

• What Is Plagiarism? (friendly explanation of plagiarism with examples from Georgetown University; make sure you read the entire article; you  will be severely penalized for plagiarism in this course)

• The UVic Writer's Guide (well-organized, easy to follow guide with examples)

• The OWL at Purdue (Online Writing Lab, includes the writing process, grammar and mechanics, literary analysis and criticism, writing about poetry)

• How to Evaluate the Information Sources You Find

• Basic Steps in Writing a Literature Paper

• Citation Styles Handbook: MLA

• MLA Style FAQ

• Paper Guidelines 1 and 2

• Literary Criticism: Principles

• Model Criticism (some essays by F. R. Leavis; a couple of obsolete links)

• English Help

Bell, Bernard W.  The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition.  Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. (IIC American St.  813.009896 BA)

Berman, Ronald.  Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the Twenties.  Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2001.

Bradbury, Malcolm.  The Modern American Novel.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.

Chase, Richard.  The American Novel and Its Tradition.  New York: Doubleday, 1957. (CL  813.09 C487A, Arts  PS371 C487A)

Elliott, Emory, ed.  The Columbia History of the American Novel.  New York: Columbia UP, 1991. (IIC American St.  813.009 CE )

Kalaidjian, Walter, ed.  The Cambridge Companion to American Modernism.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005.

Lee, Brian.  American Fiction, 1865-1940.  London : Longman, 1992.

Matthews, Steven.  Modernism.  London: Arnold, 2004.

Minter, David.  A Cultural History of the American Novel: Henry James to William Faulkner.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Perkins, George, ed.  The Theory of the American Novel.  New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. (IIC American St.  808.3 PT)

Rainey, Lawrence, ed.  Modernism: An Anthology.  Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

Rhodes, Chip .  Structures of the Jazz Age: Mass culture, Progressive Education, and Racial Discourse in American Modernism.  London : Verso, 1998.

Wagner-Martin, Linda.  The Modern American Novel, 1914-1945: A Critical History.  New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990. (IIC American St.  813.5209 WM)

• Literature Resources: 20th-21st Century (list of links)

• Literary Resources: Twentieth-Century Literature (list of links)

• American Literature: 20th Century (list of links to webpages on individual authors)

• Modernism/modernity (journal, searchable by issue and section)

• The Modernist Journals Project (digital versions of English language periodicals published between 1890 to 1922)

• 1913 Armory Show (online site about the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York City, lots of images)

• Modernism and the Arts in the 20th Century (list of links)

• Modern American Poetry (An Online Journal and Multimedia Companion to
  Anthology of Modern American Poetry)

• Debating American Modernism: Stieglitz, Duchamp, and the New York Avant-Garde (timeline with images)

• Modernist Portraits: Timeline (very brief list of events)  

Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  6th ed.  New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003. (library has 5th ed.)

Roget's International Thesaurus.  6th ed.  Ed. Barbara Ann Kipfer.  New York: Harper, 2001. (library has 3rd ed.)

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.  11th ed.  Springfield, MA: Mirriam-Webster, 2003.

Oxford English Dictionary.  2nd ed.  20 vols.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989.