12:00 noon - 1:15 Tuesdays and Thursdays
242 Murrow East
Dr. Donna Campbell
Avery 357 • 335-4831
Email (best way to reach me): campbelld@wsu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:25-2:30
Virtual Office Hours via Skype or Google chat: dmcampbellwsu
Course blog: http://english481popularthenclassicnow.blogspot.com/
This course will focus on selected American authors from 1865-1940, with special emphasis on their position in literary culture during their own time and their place in literary history today. Our course will address the following questions: “Why were these authors popular or critically acclaimed in their own day? Why do we still read them today?” Rather than reading one work apiece by a greater number of authors, we’ll concentrate on reading several works by each selected author. We’ll also read responses to their work during their lifetimes and writing by others in their literary circles.
The goals for students in the course are as follows:
To read and closely analyze a number of works of classic American literature within the course materials described.
To understand that the reasons for an author's popularity and critical reputation may shift over time, and to conduct independent research into those reasons.
To learn about significant movements and trends in American literature (realism, naturalism, and modernism, for example).
To work with and learn to evaluate primary and secondary resources, includinglocating primary print sources and digitized versions online, learning to use the MLA Bibliography and other databases to find secondary sources, and learning to assess web materials for reliability, and locating primary source.
To synthesize the knowledge thus gained into papers and presentations in order to disseminate those insights to the class.
Required Texts
Baym, Nina, ed.Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. C. 7th Ed. Norton, 2007. 978-0393927412.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises.Scribner, 2006. 978-0743297332.
Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome and Summer. Modern Library, 2001. 978-0375757280.
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