ClassInfo

Details

Our course is an 8-week summer session course that begins on June 12 and concludes on August 4, 2017. This is a 4-credit, writing intensive course that fulfills the writing requirement, the literature core requirement, and the diversity and social justice in the US requirement. We meet three times a week for roughly three hours every session. *** NOTE: Room change *** We will meet in Mechanical Engineering, Room 102 (the building next to Lind Hall). Mechanical Engineering is quite close to the Coffman train/bus stop, is fully accessible with elevators, and has central air-conditioning.

Due to the accelerated pace of this course, time will be provided in-class to work on projects such as the group presentation, and there will be at least one in-class work day in which students will be able to use class time to work on papers or get ahead on readings.

Overview

Our course will include representative works by American Indian, African American, Asian American, Chicano/Chicana, and Jewish American writers, chiefly from the 20th century, ranging from Nobel- and Pulitzer prize-winning masters to upcoming genre authors and debut authors. In reading these works, we will discuss social and cultural factors informing America's literary past and present. As these authors honor identity, celebrate community, and deal with the complexities of the modern age, they also explore America's shared and problematic past--"how history works itself out in the living," as author Louise Erdrich has phrased it. In the course of our discussions, we will engage with contemporary genres/modes of writing, including traditional literary fiction, poetry, plays, spy and detective fiction, speculative fiction, and the graphic novel.

You will be required to read four novels (three shorter novels and one longer novel), one play, and one graphic novel outside of class. During class time, we will read short stories and poems, as well as watch three films and several interviews. Class sessions will also include lectures, discussion, quizzes, freewriting, and other short writing assignments. Weather permitting, we may take a field trip to a local museum or conduct class outside occasionally.

Assignments

10% Participation (class discussion, workshops, conferences)

10% Attendance (arriving late will lower your grade; see attendance policy)

In-person on East Bank campus three times a week for three hours.