American Literature: Transformations
Professor
Allison Pease
Literature 233
Office: 1239 North Hall
Hours: Thurs 3:15- 4:15 pm
& by appointment
Phone: (212) 237-8565
e-mail:apease@jjay.cuny.edu
This course explores representative American novels, poetry, short stories and prose writings from the earliest European explorations of the continent to the present. In reading this literature, we will focus thematically on the idea that America has always been a place of transformation, whether that transformation occurs to the land itself as it is gradually colonized from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, or to the inhabitants of the land who transform themselves psychologically, culturally, and materially in order to fit in to their perception of what it means to be an American.
This course seeks to help you:
- read literary texts carefully and analytically
- question cultural assumptions, your assumptions
- gain a solid understanding of some of the major figures and ideas in American literature
- improve the analytical focus and efficiency of your writing
- communicate complex ideas clearly
- enjoy reading
Please purchase these editions . Our class discussions depend on it.
- A selection of readings available on Electronic Reserve, password is "Pease"
- Michael Cunningham, The Hours . Picador, 1998.
- Junot Díaz, Drown , Riverhead Books, 1996.
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , Dover Thrift.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter . Bantam Books, 1986.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays , Dover Thrift.
- Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing , Rutgers UP, 2002.
- Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine . Fawcett Crest/Ballantine, 1989.
… Regular attendance and thoughtful, active participation in class discussions. Your grade in the course will drop by 1/3 of a grade (e.g., B- to C+) with four absences. After five absences you will fail the course . While I do not assign a grade for class participation, demonstration of your commitment to the goals of the course can and will affect your grade if you are "in-between" grades when it comes time to tally your final grade. If you have made a positive contribution to class discussion and/or made an effort with the course assignments, you will receive the higher grade. If you have been disruptive or made no visible effort, you will receive the lower grade.
… Eight two-page papers in which you write a short analysis of the assigned text. I will collect all papers and record whether or not the assignment has been completed, but will grade them at random ( n.b ., even if you have not turned in a paper, it could be your turn to be graded. In such an instance, the grade assigned for that paper is an "F"). Each student will be graded four times throughout the semester. At the end of the semester I will collect all of your completed essays and assign a portfolio grade based on your effort and improvement as the semester progressed. SAVE YOUR WORK. My policy on papers is very simple, and, quite strict: I accept no late papers. I maintain this policy in order to avoid evaluating individual excuses and emergencies, and in order to make the playing field among students as level as possible. Please do not ask me to compromise this policy as I hold it not out of lack of compassion for what I know are often valid reasons for not completing work, but out of a desire to be as fair as possible to as many students as I can.
… A five to ten-minute class presentation in which you and a partner explain an assigned literary term from A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms and then relate it to a passage from the novel or play we're reading.
… One two-hour final examination based on the course theme and all of the works read during the semester.
- 60% of your grade will be based on the four graded papers.
- 10% of your grade will be based on the completion, effort, and improvement of your eight papers as collected in a portfolio.
- 10% of your grade will be based on your presentation.
- 20% of your grade will be based on the final exam.
January 27 Course introduction -What we do when we read: a primer in close-reading
February 1 no class
MIGRATION AND TRANSFORMATION
February 3 (electronic reserve, password "Pease") Selections from Columbus's Journal of the First Voyage to America Yuchi tale: "Creation of the Whites"
literary term(s): metaphor
February 8 Mukherjee, Jasmine , pp. 1-43, literary term(s): symbol
February 10 Mukherjee, Jasmine , pp. 44-86, literary term(s): character
February 15 Mukherjee, Jasmine, pp. 86-153, literary term(s): cultural criticism
paper #1 due
February 17 Mukherjee, Jasmine , pp. 154-189, literary term(s): Bildungsroman
February 22 Mukherjee, Jasmine , pp. 190-241, literary term(s): theme
paper #2 due
SELF-TRANSFORMATION AND THE COMMUNITY: PURITANICAL BEGINNINGS
February 24 (electronic reserve, password "Pease") Selections from Benjamin Franklin Autobiography, Letter from J. Hector St. John Crèvecour, "What is an American?", literary term(s): personification
March 1 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter , pp. 45-98, literary term(s): simile
March 3 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter , pp. 98-145, literary term(s): mood
March 8 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter , pp. 146-188, literary term(s): Romantic imagery and symbolism
paper #3 due
March 10 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter , pp. 188-240, literary term(s): allegory
SELF-RELIANCE AND INDIVIDUAL TRANSFORMATION
March 15 Emerson, "Self-Reliance", literary term(s): anaphora, antithesis, parallelism, chiasmus (see figurative language)
March 17 Emerson, "Self-Reliance," Douglass, Narrative of the Life , pp. 1-30, literary term(s): persona
March 22 Douglass, Narrative of the Life , pp. 30 - 69, literary term(s): retrospective narration (see narrative point of view)
Paper #4 due
March 24 no classes
March 29 no classes
March 31 (electronic reserve, password "Pease") Alain Locke, "The New Negro", literary term(s): anaphora, antithesis, parallelism, chiasmus (see figurative language)
April 5 Larsen, Passing , pp. 143-202, literary term(s): metonymy
April 7 Larsen, Passing , pp. 203-242, literary term(s): ambiguity
paper #5 due
ISOLATION, CREATION, IMAGINARY TRANSFORMATION, DEATH
April 12 Cunningham, The Hours , pp. 3-68, literary term(s): postmodernism
April 14 Cunningham, The Hours , pp. 69-112, literary term(s): narrative point of view
April 19 Cunningham, The Hours , pp. 113-85, literary term(s): cuts (see film editing; what are analogies in this text?)
April 21 Cunningham, The Hours , pp. 187-226, literary term(s): plot
paper #6 due
April 26-28 spring break
May 3 Díaz, Drown , pp. 3-65, literary term(s): allusion
May 5 Díaz, Drown , pp. 69-140, literary term(s): simile
May 10 Díaz, Drown , pp. 141-208, literary term(s): tenor and vehicle (see metaphor)
paper #7 due
May 12 Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener" [click here to acces the text]
literary term(s): protagonist/antagonist
May 17 Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener", literary term(s): irony
paper #8 due
May 24 or 26 Final Exam
The class presentation is a 5-10 minute opportunity for you and a partner to demonstrate your mastery of a literary concept and its application in a text. The terms listed in the syllabus can be found in A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms . I also encourage you to search out other sources for definitions of the terms, including literary encyclopedias or the Web (though as in all web use, exercise caution and awareness of what site and source you're using. Not all are accurate). The presentation should consist of three parts: (1) the explanation of the assigned term for the day, in which you convey a full understanding of the term (this means that you explain it in your own words, not those of the guide); (2) an example of the way(s) you see this term being used, or working, in the day's reading from the literary text, and (3) an analysis of why this particular vehicle or concept might be useful for the author, or help convey the central ideas, of the text we're studying.
Please keep in mind that all students in the class must listen to your presentation and that, like you, they are here to learn. It is your responsibility to ensure that your presentation has real content and real thought. Though I encourage a casual class atmosphere, and hope that spontaneous discussion will result from your presentation, your presentation should not itself be casual.
Any successful paper will include the following:
- A brief thesis paragraph that defines the terms of your argument, or sets up the problems/questions you want to explore.
- A carefully and thoroughly developed argument that is sustained throughout the paper. The central idea or idea-set presented in the essay is thoroughly explained, and the connections and relationships between ideas and textual analysis are made clear. Each paragraph of the essay explores one idea and in doing so moves the argument forward.
- An argument that is carefully supported by textual analysis . Quoted passages from texts are explained thoroughly and connected to the larger argument. In working closely with the text, attention is paid to the CENTRAL role language plays in making meaning. The relationship between textual examples and the argument is made clear. Observations and evidence are balanced with ideas.
- An obvious effort to educate the reader about his or her ideas. No information is taken for granted.
- Careful attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Papers are proofread, not just for grammatical problems, but also for sentence style and clarity.
- Page numbers of the texts studied are cited using APA style.
- Proper incorporation of quotations into the author's sentences as opposed to allowing cited text to stand as its own sentence.
For example:
The narrator of Junot Diaz's story "Aurora" thinks that he has no future. When his ex-girlfriend Aurora begs him to get back together, he hits her and makes the "blood come out of her ear like a worm" in order to avoid the pain of contemplating the future (p. 65). The image of the blood as worm is particularly telling for just as a worm coming out of an apple suggests that the apple is rotten, the blood in this image suggests that there is something inherently rotten about both Aurora and the future. But in case we get too caught up in the imagery, it is important to remember that the narrator has created this "worm" himself through his own violence. He is trapped in a downward cycle.
Paper Assignments
Paper # 1
Find a passage in the assigned reading that describes a pivotal, transforming event in Jasmine/Jyoti/Jane's life. Explain in what way "J" is transformed by this event. Argue whether or not the transformation was the result of her own free will or fate. This paper should be two, typed, double-spaced pages in 12 pt. font. All citations must follow APA format. Keep in mind that a good paper will introduce its main argument in the opening paragraph and then move quickly to support its argument with carefully explained evidence.
Paper #2
Read the language of Jasmine's last few pages carefully, noting the words Jasmine uses to describe American character and experience. Analyze these words and then argue whether the qualities she describes are good or bad for a society, society being another way of saying a community that is made up of interdependent individuals.
Paper #3
In chapters 16 & 17 of The Scarlet Letter, nature is so strong a presence as almost to form an additional character in the novel. Choose a specific passage from one of these chapters and close-read the language Hawthorne uses to present the natural setting. Make an argument that explains what you think Hawthorne is doing by presenting nature as he does, and what thematic ideas he may be presenting through this natural setting.
Paper #4
Define Emerson's idea of self-reliance. Then find an incident from Frederick Douglass's narrative that shows either the denial by slave-owners of Douglass's self-reliance, or Douglass's assuming the powers of self-reliance in a way that alters his destiny. Analyze why this happens.
Paper #5
In his 1925 essay "The New Negro" Alain Locke asserts that African-Americans have engaged in a "protective social mimicry" in order to get by in society. Find at least three instances of "protective social mimicry" in the second half of Nella Larsen's Passing and explain what motivates each character's actions in these instances. Finally, argue what the "passing" of Larsen's title means.
OR
Write a letter from Clare Kendry to Irene Redfield explaining your actions throughout the novel Passing . To be effective, you will not only need to assume the tone of Clare, but refer to specific incidents, even quoting them.
Paper #6
The Hours presents readers with a series of dichotomies: life and death, sane and insane, private selves and public selves, secure and insecure, safety and danger. Choose one of those dichotomies and illustrate how the novel presents that idea by close-reading a passage from the last 50 pages of the novel. After illustrating the dichotomy, argue what you think the novel's overriding message on that dichotomy is.
Paper #7
Explain what the status of the American Dream is according to the stories of Junot Díaz's Drown . Choosing one story as an example, explain what you think the implicit commentary on the American Dream is. Does Díaz fault the dream or his characters? Explain why.
Paper #8
Choose one character that we've read about this semester and write a two-page paper explaining why you identify most with this character. A strong paper will demonstrate a careful consideration of this character and an understanding of what motivates him or her, and what enables or prevents him/her from achieving his/her desires.