20th Century American Literature

ENGL 3320--001

Room: PH 321

Time: T, TH 100-225

Under Construction

 

Dr. David Lavery

Office: PH 372 | Office Hours: Office Hours:  TBA | E-mail: david.lavery@gmail.com | Office Phone/Voice-Mail: 615-898-5648 | Home Page: http://davidlavery.net

 

 

Dr. David Lavery

Office: PH 372 | Office Hours: Office Hours:  TBA | E-mail: david.lavery@gmail.com | Office Phone/Voice-Mail: 615-898-5648 | Home Page: http://davidlavery.net

Dr. David Lavery is Professor of English at MTSU (1993- ), where he won the University's 2006 Distinguished Research Award. The author of over one hundred and fifty published essays, chapters, and reviews, he is author / co-author / editor / co-editor of over twenty books, including Joss Whedon, A Creative Portrait: From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Avengers, TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural, The Essential Cult Television Reader, and The Essential Sopranos Reader. The co-convener of international conferences on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the work of Joss Whedon and on The Sopranos, co-founder of the Whedon Studies Association, and founding co-editor of the journals Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, Critical Studies in Television, and Series/Season/Show, he has lectured around the world on the subject of television (Australia, Turkey, the UK, Portugal, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany) and has been a guest/source for the BBC, NPR, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, A Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), Publica (Portugal), Information (Netherlands), AP, The Toronto Star, USA Today. From 2006-2008, he taught at Brunel University in London.

 

 

Texts

       

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Class Members

TBA

 

Course Requirements

TBA

 

Power Points

TBA

Agenda

Week1

8/28/2012: Subject: Introduction to the Course | Reading Assignment(s): Henry Adams, Selections from The Education of Henry Adams (C386), Frederick Jackson Turner (C1133), Black Elk Speaks (D 23), Thomas Pynchon, "Entropy" (723)

8/30/2012Subject: Realism and Naturalism | Reading Assignment(s): Henry James, "The Beast in the Jungle (C477) London, “To Build a Fire” (C1047); Edith Wharton, "Roman Fever" (C828); Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (C1110), Edgar Lee Masters (D36); Edwin Arlington Robinson (D40)

 

Week 2

9/4/2012—Subject: Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein | Reading Assignment(s): Cather, "The Sculptor's Funeral" (D45); Stein (D197, D227)

9/6/2012—Subject: World War I | Reading Assignment(s): World War I & Its Aftermath (D214)

 

Week 3

9/11/2012—Subject: Robert Frost | Reading Assignment(s): Frost (D230)

9/13/2012—Subject: Susan Glaspell, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg | Reading Assignment(s): Glaspell, Trifles (D252), Anderson (D263), Sandburg (D278)

 

Week 4

9/18/2012—Subject: Wallace Stevens | Reading Assignment(s): Stevens (D281)

9/20/2012—Subject: William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound | Reading Assignment(s): Williams (D302), Pound (D314)

 

Week 5

9/25/2012: Subject: Modernism | Reading Assignment(s): Modernist Manifestos (D335); Dos Passos (D690)

9/30/2012: Subject: H.D., Marianne Moore, Edna St. Vincent Millay  | Reading Assignment(s): H.D. (D350), Moore (D357), Millay (D633)

 

Week 6

10/2/2012: Subject: African American Writing | Reading Assignment(s): W. E. B. DuBois (C883), James Weldon Johnson (C1009), Paul Dunbar (C1028), Claude McKay (D480), Zora Neale Hurston (D528), Jean Toomer (D646), Sterling Brown (D864), Countee Cullen (D892), Richard Wright (D898)

10/4/2012—Subject: African American Writing (continued), Langston Hughes; Reading Assignment(s): Hughes (D869)

 

Week 7

10/9/2012—Subject: T. S. Eliot | Reading Assignment(s): Eliot (D365)

10/11/2012—Subject: e. e. Cummings | Reading Assignment(s): cummings (D636)

 

Week 8

10/16/2012: Fall Break (no class)

10/18/2012—Subject: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway | Reading Assignment(s): Fitzgerald (D658), Hemingway (D824)

 

Week 9

10/23/2012: Subject: William Faulkner | Reading Assignment(s): Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (D698)

10/25/2012: Subject: Faulkner (continued)

 

Week 10

10/30/2012—Subject: Hart Crane | Reading Assignment(s): Crane (D812)

11/1/2012: Subject: Robert Penn Warren, Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop | Reading Assignment(s): Warren (E28), Roethke (E37), Bishop (E71)

 

Week 11

11/6/2012: Subject: Tennessee Williams | Reading Assignment(s): Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (E90)

11/8/2012: Subject: John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Eudora Welty | Reading Assignment(s): Cheever, “The Swimmer” (E156), Malamud, “The Magic Barrel” (E193), Welty, "Petrified Man" (E52)

 

Week 12

11/13/2012: Subject: Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Flannery O'Connor | Reading Assignment(s): Ellison, The Invisble Man (E206), Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (E225), O'Connor, "Good Country People" (E445)

11/15/2012: Subject: Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wilbur, James Dickey | Reading Assignment(s): Brooks (E322), Wilbur (E344), Dickey (E391)

 

Week 13

11/20/2012: Subject: Postmodernism | Reading Assignment(s): Postmodern Manifestoes (E400), Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (E372), Donald Barthelme (E603), Frank O'Hara (E506)

11/22/2012: Thanksgiving (No Class)

 

Week 14

11/25/2012—Subject: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton | Reading Assignment(s): Plath (E623), Sexton (E558)

11/27/2012: Subject: Maxine Hong Kingston, Annie Dillard, Art Spiegelman | Reading Assignment(s): Kingston (E791), Dillard (E975), Spiegelman (E1057)

 

Week 15

12/4/2012—Subject: Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Gary Snyder, Sherman Alexie | Reading Assignment(s): Collins (E829), Oliver (E698), Snyder (E596), Alexie (E1207)

 

Final Exam Week

12/7-13/2012