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Text Box: American Writers 2 Gordon Hadfield MWF 1:00 - 1:50 Reg. No. 196094

Text Box: This course follows the path of industrialization, urbanization, and war. Beginning with the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865, we will examine the first sprigs of modern American literature in the later work of Emily Dickinson and selections from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1892). We may also encounter Herman Melville’s most monstrous novel: Moby Dick. Next, we will encounter World War I, tracking Gertrude Stein’s lost generation, in selections from her own Tender Buttons (1914), Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926), and T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland (1922). We will also briefly examine the Harlem Renaissance and the works of other African American writers with selections from Langston Hughes The Weary Blues (1926) and Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923). By the time World War II had ended in 1945, America was ready to burst. Here we will run mad through the streets looking at the Beats: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems (1956), a selection from William Burroughs, and a selection from Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (1957). We will also look into the New American poetries sparked by Donald Hall’s 1950 anthology, and head down South to investigate the mid-century short stories of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. If we have even more time, we may spend a day or two looking into the Confessionalist poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. We will end in the post-Vietnam information economy of postmodernism. Here we might encounter the cyberpunk work of Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School (1978), and the cerebral critique of Don Delillo’s White Noise (1985). We will also read selections from Lyn Hejinian’s My Life. Possible Texts: Acker, Kathy. Blood and Guts in High School Delillo, Don. White Noise Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises Melville, Herman. Moby Dick Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons Poems and short stories will be placed on on-line reserve and a packet will be available from Queen City Imaging. Course requirements: regular attendance, two 5-7 page essays, weekly/daily quizzes, and a midterm exam.