ENAM Modern U.S. Novels

Fall 2014

 

 

Victoria Olwell                                                                                                            Office: Bryan 414      

Vjo2f@virginia.edu                                                                    Office Hours:  Wed., 11-12;  Thur. 3-5

 

 

Course Description:

 

This course examines how U.S. authors took up and transformed the genre of the novel in the first half of the twentieth century. We’ll investigate experiments in realism, naturalism, and modernism. With our eyes trained on the social and economic changes of the era, we’ll study how modern novels understood consciousness, emotions, community, nationhood, and America’s place in a global network of nations and economies. Course requirements include two 7-page papers, a final, and exuberant class participation. For those who are interested, this course will be followed by a course focused on contemporary (post-1945) U.S. novels in the spring.

 

Books:

Available at the UVA bookstore. Please obtain the editions I have ordered for class, because some include secondary material that we will be using and in all cases discussion is easier if we have the same pagination. The numbers that follow the titles are the ISBN numbers, which will let you identify the correct edition if you are obtaining your books from a source besides the UVA bookstore. (You can just type the ISBN number in to the Amazon search function, for instance.)

 

1)Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (ED: PIZER), 978-0-393-93075-7

2) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth,  0-19-953810-7

3) Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 0-7432-9733-4

4) Gertrude Stein, Three Lives and Tender Buttons, (INTRO: SOUHAMI )-0-451-52872-7

5) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 0-7432-7356-7

6) Nella Larsen, Passing, 0-14-243727-1

7) William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!, 0-679-73218-7

8) Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, 0-8112-1671-3

9) Richard Wright, Native Son, 978-0-06-092980-0

 

Grades:

Class Participation:     15%

Paper 1:                       25%

Paper 2:                       35%

Final Exam:                 25%

 

 

Class Attendance and Participation

You are expected to attend class and to participate actively. After your second absence, your grade will be penalized by 1/3 for every unexcused absence.

Academic Honesty

All of your work for this course must be your own. Plagiarism occurs when an author passes off another person’s words or ideas as his or her own. Words taken from sources must appear in quotation marks, and the source must be cited. Ideas taken from any source must also have a citation properly identifying that source. You can find the proper forms for citation in Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7^th Edition, widely available for purchase and also in Alderman Library.

 

Reading Schedule:

Note: I might make changes to the schedule over the course of the semester. I will announce these in class and email a confirmation.

 

Aug. 26:          Introduction to the course

 

Aug. 28:          Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, chapters I – X

Jay Martin, “The Massing Forces – The Forging Masses,” in the Norton Red Badge.

 

Sep. 2:             The Red Badge of Courage through conclusion.

John Higham, “The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s,” in Norton

Early responses by George Wyndham, Alexander C. McClurg, Ripley Hitchcock, and Sydney Brooks in Norton.

 

Sep. 4:             Amy Kaplan, “The Spectacle of War in Crane’s Revision of History,” in Norton

                        John E. Curren, “`Nobody seems to know where we go’ . . ., “ in Norton

 

Sep. 9:             Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, through Book I, Ch. X

 

Sep. 11            The House of Mirth, through Book I, Ch. XIV

 

Sep. 16:           The House of Mirth, through Book II, X

 

Sep. 18:           The House of Mirth, through conclusion

                        Martha Banta, “Introduction” to The House of Mirth

 

Sep. 23:           Gertrude Stein, “The Gentle Lena,” in Three Lives

                        Stein, very short selection from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, on Collab

 

Sep. 25:           Gertrude Stein, “Melanctha,”pages tba, in Three Lives

William James selection, on Collab

 

Sep. 30:           Paper 1 due in class

                        No new reading to be discussed today

                       

Oct. 2:             “Melanctha,” through conclusion

 

Oct. 7              Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926) through Book I

 

Oct. 9              The Sun Also Rises through Book II, Chapter XII

 

Reading Days:  Sat. Oct 11- Tues. Oct 14

 

 

Oct. 16:           The Sun Also Rises, through conclusion

Peter Nicholls, “Stein, Hemingway, and American Modernisms,” Collab

 

Oct. 21:           F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925), pages tba

 

Oct. 23:           The Great Gatsby, through conclusion

                        Kirk Curnutt, “The Great Gatsby and the 1920s,” on Collab.

 

Oct. 28:           Nella Larsen, Passing (1929), pages tba

 

Oct. 30             Nella Larsen, Passing, through conclusion

 

Nov. 4:            William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936), through Chapter 4

                       

Nov. 6:            class cancelled.

 

Nov. 11:          Absalom, Absalom! through chapter 7

Candace Wade, “Faulkner and the Southern Novel,”  Collab

 

Nov. 13:          Absalom, Absalom! through conclusion.

 

Nov. 18:          Paper 2 due in class

                        Djuna Barnes, Nightwood, through end of “Bow Down”

 

Nov. 20:          Nightwood, through end of “The Squatter”

 

Nov. 25:          Nightwood, through conclusion

 

Thanksgiving Break:  Wednesday, Nov. 26-Sunday, Nov. 30

 

Dec. 2:             Richard Wright, Native Son

 

Dec. 4:             Richard Wright, Native Son

 

 

 

 

This course examines how U.S. authors took up and transformed the genre of the novel in the first half of the twentieth century. We’ll investigate experiments in realism, naturalism, and modernism. With our eyes trained on the social and economic changes of the era, we’ll study how modern novels understood consciousness, emotions, community, nationhood, and America’s place in a global network of nations and economies.We will read works by Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright. Course requirements include two 7-page papers, a final, and exuberant class participation. For those who are interested, this course will be followed by a course focused on contemporary (post-1945) U.S. novels in the spring.