posted
Who would be on it? I'm taking a class on American literature since 1850 when I go to England next year, and I am sooooo displeased with the syllabus. Behold what we are reading:
Moby Dick, Herman Melville Walden, Henry David Thoreau The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway Light in August, William Faulkner The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck Native Son, Richard Wright Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller Beloved, Toni Morrison and poems by Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens
Six out of these eleven authors are white, male, and roughly contemporary (born and died within ten years of each other).
I hate it that when people talk about American Literature, I think of all these authors I can't stand, rather than the ones I love: Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Harper Lee, etc., etc. Anyway, this list seems to have left off some really fairly big American authors, like Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman.
I would probably read short stories from a couple of these people: Hemingway or Faulkner or both, Melville (Bartleby the Scrivener, eh?). Get rid of William Carlos Williams and/or Wallace Stevens and replace them with female or African-American poets--not to be repetitive, but Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson would be good choices. Personally I'd replace Beloved with The Color Purple, but that is just because I love The Color Purple with a surpassion love. I'd probably add To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a beautifully written and totally American book, and I'd (again out of personal preference) replace Richard Wright with someone else--Malcolm X, Lorraine Hansberry, Ralph Ellison...
I guess what I'm saying here is that I'd have a hell of a time choosing a syllabus for Am.Lit., but I wouldn't have chosen most of what appears on this syllabus, which I feel could only be worse if Sister Carrie were on it.
posted
Maybe the English teach dead white American men the same way our Brit lit classes teach dead white British men?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you're looking to add diversity to your Am Lit repertoire, the most amazing book from the one Am Lit course I took was Art Spiegelman's Maus. It's a graphic novel. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's one of my favourite books to date.
Posts: 58 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Pel--I know that. I'm just surprised they left off The Great Gatsby, as it's supposed to be The American Dream Novel. Walt Whitman is also dead and white and he is not at all in any way a favorite of mine (can't stand his stuff). I'm just amazed that he (and Emily Dickinson!) was left off.
Jen
Edit: What about Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible? Gorgeously written modern novel.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've always considered it rather racist and sexist to assume that we need to look to the race and sex of the writer to determine whether they should be included in a syllabus or whether some "color" need to be added in order to balance it out. Why should "diversity" be more important than the quality or historical significance of the work. I was forced to read the Color Purple in college and found it terrrible; I couldn't help at the time to think that the only reason we had to read it was because the author was black and professor was a white female liberal who felt guilty that she had assigned to many "white dead dudes" for us to read.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mig: I've always considered it rather racist and sexist to assume that we need to look to the race and sex of the writer to determine whether they should be included in a syllabus or whether some "color" need to be added in order to balance it out. Why should "diversity" be more important than the quality or historical significance of the work. I was forced to read the Color Purple in college and found it terrrible; I couldn't help at the time to think that the only reason we had to read it was because the author was black and professor was a white female liberal who felt guilty that she had assigned to many "white dead dudes" for us to read.
True, but conducting a study on contemporary American literature without even asking people to read something by Langston Hughes is a great injustice IMO.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've always considered it rather racist and sexist that we need to include so many white men on the syllabus. There are dozens of equally good (and better!) female writers and writers of different ethnicities. If I included Alice Walker (and I would), it wouldn't be because she's black; it would be because I think The Color Purple is one of the greatest novels ever written. I'd include Emily Dickinson because she's a fantastic poet, not because she's a woman. What I'm saying is that although there are wonderful white male writers, they are not the only wonderful writers; and a syllabus of American literature should reflect that. I feel.
Curious: What didn't you like about The Color Purple? I love it so...
quote:'ve always considered it rather racist and sexist that we need to include so many white men on the syllabus. There are dozens of equally good (and better!) female writers and writers of different ethnicities.
I would hope that books are added or dropped based on their quality, influence, and relevance to the American experience and literature, as opposed to the race or sex of their authors.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
If only six out of eleven are white guys, that seems like a rather diverse group, considering that most of the people published during the twentieth century were still white guys. I certainly agree it would be fun to tweak the choices, but I think that list is diverse--far more so than you're giving it credit for being. So I think you're muddying the issue; the question is simply what should be included to get a fair sample of modern American Literature, and leave race and gender out of it. In that vein, I too love The Color Purple. I don't think Bradbury has any place in such a course. I think Moby Dick, which is already on your syllabus, is an excellent choice. (Actually, I think that is a very good list in general. I would add things, in an ideal world, but the fact is that you can only fit so much and the teacher doubtless had to make some choices . . . hmm . . . actually, I changed my mind. That list is too short for a semester-long college course. It should be doubled, and then it could include all those other people we would love to see on it. Like, other than Morrison, where are the southerners? Truman Capote and Flannery O'Connor would make good additions to that list as well.)
posted
If you've already read The Color Purple, why are you mad that its not included? Classes would be very boring if they consisted only of books people have already read.
You can't include everything and while a few substitions could be argued, the list seems to fulfill the requirements of the course.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Curious: What didn't you like about The Color Purple? I love it so...
Sorry Jen, but its been years since I picked that one up. All I remember is that after about twenty pages, or so, I couldn't go another word. Ended up reading a summary a friend of mine wrote for a paper she was writing on books told in the form of letters, and a critical essay or two. (I don't think the movie had come out yet, or I'd missed it.) [I remember acing the class BTW.] Who knows, maybe if I picked it up today I might feel different.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:I would hope that books are added or dropped based on their quality, influence, and relevance to the American experience and literature, as opposed to the race or sex of their authors.
That's tricky because by assigning them in class, you are perpetuating the cycle. When we have, "Favorite Books," threads, a disconcerting number of those books listed are books one is commonly exposed in High School, and are only on that list because the reader was exposed to them in high school. Now I love me some dead white male authors, and I have a hard time reading Toni Morrison.
In my estimation, Paul Dunbar is a fantastic writer. Sport of the Gods is wonderful and deeply moving book. It's only about 160 pages. It should be in classrooms. Period. It's the perfect length, it's uniquely American, and it deals deeply with issues concerning the human condition in accessible, elegant prose, and most importantly, it's wonderful fodder for discussion and food for thought. I'm resentful that it took me took 27 years and a lark to find one of his books.
Soul on Ice is another book that I think gets short shrift. It's a little bit dated, and I don't thinks it's written as well, but it's definitely more energetic and relevant than some of the drek I was forced to read.
And Bradbury does seem out of place. Granted, I'd had loved to be able to read that in school; for some reason, every literary curriculum I've seen seems to pretend that science fiction doesn't exist. During my school days, I only got to read one sci-fi book (Left Hand of Darkness), and that was somewhat of a surprise that it was included in a list of about 50 other books.
Why is it that no curriculum includes books like Ender's Game? Stranger in a Stange Land?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Is Hatrack glitching? I seem to have lost a post on this thread.
Kat baleeted it.
American Literature...hmm... I don't know-- why do we need to differentiate between our literature and their literature?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
He said "since 1850", so Twain better be in there!
Hughes has a place, as does Ralph Ellison ("Invisible Man"). "To Kill a Mockingbird" usually gets neglected because it's almost considered YA lit these days.
I can't really say that anything on their list doesn't belong there, though. If that's the order they're in, Moby Dick followed by Walden will definitely cure your insomnia Posts: 170 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I see Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as pretty exemplary of 20th-century America. Also Irving's The Cider House Rules or A Prayer for Owen Meany.
They're white men, but at least they're not dead.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
I love To Kill a Mockingbird, but I would not include it in a high level lit class. (Are we talking 300, 400, grad, freshmen, what?)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
Chabon is jewish writing about Golem. He gets a special pass. And Irving's The Cider House Rules? It's a good book. Not great, but gripping and good. I consider Irving an entertainer more than a novelist, but maybe Cider House Rules is one of those books that may make you a better person for reading. I think that it's a little bit too thick to expect everyone to read in a classroom setting. It would probably eat up a month of class, if the kids were to discuss every chapter. Both are great books, by the way, as is the Poisonwood Bible, but maybe if we had a module where kids could pick out one big book to take a test and write a report on, we could give them a list and have them pick out one of these three to be on it.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I've always considered it rather racist and sexist that we need to include so many white men on the syllabus.
This is only true if I agree with your assumption that the authors were chosen because they were white men.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
I got to read Bradbury for a class in middle school, and one of my classes also included Ender's Game and 1984. Also, Brave New World was required reading. So sci-fi wise, I guess I got pretty lucky.
quote:I consider Irving an entertainer more than a novelist, but maybe Cider House Rules is one of those books that may make you a better person for reading.
You seperate out your fun and enlightenment into two seperate pieces?
"This one for Entertainment... but THIS one is special. THIS one is a Great Work. Now, Great Work, don't go over there-- hey, you stop that creeping, mister. That's Entertainment, don't you go over there. Those Entertainments they're nice and all, but they're not Your People. Come on. Sit with me here in this chair, and we'll just put Entertainment back in the back here. Where he BELONGS."
Yeesh. Tell me you don't think like that.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Is that along the lines of how video stores have the "entertainment" in the back behind the beaded curtain?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
Anyone who excoriates 'The Incredibles' the way you did, for the reasons you did, or touted 'American Treasure' DOES NOT compartementalize media this way.
(This is in jest. Half in jest, anyway. Irami knows how he thinks better than I do.)
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote: can't really say that anything on their list doesn't belong there, though. If that's the order they're in, Moby Dick followed by Walden will definitely cure your insomnia
Oh man is this ever true. I'm in an American lit class right now in fact and the hardest part of studying for the final next week is slogging through all the text and notes on Moby Dick and Walden. *shudder* How I hate Walden.
I don't think the list is a bad one, necessarily. In my school, an English major must take an upper level (300 and 400 classes) in British lit, American lit, and African-American lit. I find that requirement curious. Not that I regret having to take the African- American course, I'm sure there is some excellent work in that course, but I wonder why it isn't just simply considered great American lit? And we single out race, but not gender - so far I've studied very few female writers in either my British or American classes.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
EDIT: Even though I think literature by African American women is most of the best literature being written today. (And if anybody wants a recommendation, check out Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor. It's an awesome work, magical realism for fans of that, and Naylor is a class act in person--much classier than Maya Angelou.)
-o-
Moby Dick gets an unfairly bad rap. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think there is a sense going into the book that everyone says it sucks, and so it must suck.
True, the fact that the pages of a book on cetology got accidentally mixed into the manuscript somehow slows the story down, but I find that if you rip out those erroneously placed pages, the story just flies by.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Icarus--I only survived Moby Dick by having a good AP English teacher who made it very clear which parts, about a third of the book altogether, to read Posts: 170 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I guess the school requirements wouldn't bother me if they were simply separate courses of study all together, like British and American lit are. But they DO cover some fantastic African-American writers in the American lit classes, as they should. Langston Huges being one that was mentioned by name in an American lit course description.
So, what is the African-American lit class supposed to be? "Literature by African-Americans that wasn't good enough to be in the American lit course so we stuck them in here?" Why not just subdivide the American requirement into two courses, like the British is (we must take one course in British lit before 1660 and one after) so that you have enough room to cover great American writers of both genders and all ethnicities? Instead, you're required to take one course in American lit (any time period) and one in African-American. Seems messed up to me, too. *shrug* Oh well. I have to follow the requirements to get my degree whether I agree with them or not. And like I said, I don't doubt it will be a good course.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
Thinking back on my American Lit class in high school, the only one I can remember to be 'modern' is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston...Thurston...something like that. I loved the book. I think my teacher was rebelling against the "Everyone must read Toni Morrison" kick that everyone was on...and is still on. Hm. We also read Walden, now that I think of it.
You could throw some Jack London in there too. The Sea Wolf is a fantastic book. I've heard that he's written some short stories as well.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
Cannot stand Beloved. I am not a fan of Toni Morrison. I was all set to love it, but I didn't like it as a book. The writing seemed too self-conscious.
I loved the Richard Wright books, though - I would be very happy to replace Toni Morrison with Richard Wright, who writes very well.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Native Son is wonderful. He also wrote some good short stories, didn't he? (Sorry, I'm not kat.)
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The only thing by Alice Walker that I have not loved is The Temple of My Familiar (or something like that). Aside from that, I think she's brilliant.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read Possessing the Secret of Joy, and although it was good it was so depressing it made me want to DIE. But I could read The Color Purple every week for the rest of my life, I love it so much.
(Incidentally, The Color Purple was the only book I ever wanted to read as a kid that my mother said firmly I should wait to read. About a year ago, I mentioned this to her, and she said that it wasn't the content that was concerning her. She just wanted me to appreciate it, and I wouldn't have at ten. My mum is so cool.)
posted
I really love James Baldwin. His "Go Tell it On the Mountain" I would put on that list in place of Native Son.
I agree with Faulkner, Steinbeck, Morrison, and Melville. I think if they wanted to put Hemingway on there, it should have been "The Old Man and the Sea", though I haven't read Sun Also Rises, so I might be wrong. Melville I would have liked to see Billy Budd instead of Moby Dick (though obviously MD is more famous) and for Faulkner, while Light in August is his greatest novel, I would have picked "The Unvanquished" instead.
I am a believer in approaching reading as a passion that has you devouring books because you love them so much that you can't stop. So instead of choosing the author's deepest, most important works, the ones in retrospect that you feel have the most substance after reading everything they wrote, I would go with choosing the books that it's easiest to fall in love with, the ones that you can't put down, that suck you in and make you laugh and cry. Once the students learn to love an author, they will devour all his or her books on their own.
I think maybe the teachers choose these titles thinking that the student will only read these books by these authors and no others. In other words, that the students don't read except what they are forced to read. That's sort of sad, I think.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, and Fyfe, I would definitely have put Emily Dickenson on there, since she was my first favorite poet when I was a kid. I think she's a lot better than Walt Whitman. To me he is terribly dated.
I do like Frost too. He has some great stuff.
Some say the world will end in fire Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction, ice Is also great, And would suffice.
That one is a jewel! Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
For Faulkner, I think I would pick The Sound and the Fury.
I found The Sun Also Rises to be more tedious than other works of Hemmingway's, but I think he was a great writer on the whole. I like his stripped down style, much better than, say, James or Wharton. (Or Austen, who is so terribly popular at the movies these days.)
Your ideas on picking the most accessible work by an author are interesting . . . I think I disagree, for high level university classes, but I'm not sure I will like the rhetorical position that will put me in, so let me think about it. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm torn because I'm basically a "populist" when it comes to literature. I don't believe academic literature is better or higher art or anything like that than popular fiction. I resent it when bookstores segregate literature and fiction as though literature were a separate genre. Frankly, I think being a "storyteller" is a hell of a high calling, and many authors of literature cease to be storytellers because their works are so impenetrable. That they would then sneer at those who really are storytellers, when they are not, is galling.
I agree with those who say that a love of reading is killed, many times, by the way we teach literature in middle and upper school. I believe schoolkids should have a lot of freedom in what they read.
But . . .
If you're taking upper level literature courses, then your love of reading has not been killed--you like this crap! (In case it's not clear, I include myself in that statement.) You like taking apart texts that invite deeper reading, and invite argument about ambiguous conclusions. And so I think that the best works for upper level college lit courses are those that invite a deeper analysis. I would recommend "The Waste Land" or "The Hollow Men" over "Possums Book of Practical Cats" or "The Hippopotumus" for that reason. The latter two might be less threatening, but the first two are richer fields.
(Which begs the question of whether the exercise of reading "harder" literature is an empty/onanistic one, since we're basically sitting around and debating literature that I don't put on a pedestal. I don't know . . . maybe I wasted a whole lot of years of college and grad school. I'd like to think that there is value in it, though, from a psychological, or maybe sociological standpoint. From a "learning to create meaning" standpoint--what would that be, metacognition or something?)
I guess that's how I try to reconcile the populist in me with my pretentious side.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I suppose what I'm objecting to in this syllabus (apart from all the authors I can't stand) is that the equally gifted non-white non-male authors have been passed over. I do not despise William Carlos Williams or Wallace Stevens in the least (I have recordings of them reading their poetry!); I'm just staggered that Emily Dickinson, certainly a more major American author, has been ignored. Space on a syllabus is limited, of course, but if it came to a choice between William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens and Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes, it surprises me enormously that the former two would be chosen.
The sample of authors is not, I think, representative of the incredible richness and depth in modern American literature. The writings of all these people, while magnificent in their own right (to some--I cannot stand Ernest Hemingway, though partly for personality reasons, or William Faulkner), are not enough. It's not so much that I want to excise some of these authors (I do though) as that I think many others are equally if not more deserving of a spot on the list.
Jen
But I could just be bitter about having to read a bunch of stuff I don't want to read. I really want to read the other two books after Naughts and Crosses, which are not at the university library or the public library or the bookstore, damn it!
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: The sample of authors is not, I think, representative of the incredible richness and depth in modern American literature.
But how can eight authors possibly be representative of an entire literature? If the list were tweaked as you wanted, would it be more representative? I don't think it would.
I think there is a lot of diversity in that list. I do think it's worth imagining how we would change it, but I don't think lack of diversity is a fair charge to lay at its feet.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read a good bit of the books on my college reading list back in the day, but the only thing on your list that I've read is Death of a Salesman. I've read some Frost, Dickingson, and Twain. We did read Lee in school. I think that's it.
I don't think I could back over my college reading list and tell you where the author was from. It sounds like a good class for me to take just so I knew who these people were.
But then, I suffer from the mindset that if I've seen the movie and read enough other stuff referencing it, I don't have to go back and read the book. I already know what's going on.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
Icarus, I see your point as well. The process of actually studying a particular work can enrich it for you hugely, and it does seem a shame to pass over the meatiest works for this treatment. Also, you're totally right that the people wouldn't be in the class if they didn't already love this stuff. But I still think fun should have a very high weight when it comes to choosing reading material. Mainly because if it's fun you will do it a whole lot more.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I'd like to think that there is value in it, though, from a psychological, or maybe sociological standpoint. From a "learning to create meaning" standpoint--what would that be, metacognition or something?)
