Category: american literature

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+ america, american dream, american history, american literature, frederick douglass, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Pedagogy, syllabus

“What is an American?”: Early American Literature Course Syllabus

by Unknown's avatar

It has been a few years since I have taught an American literature course from colonialism to 1865. This semester, I am doing just that, and I am again thinking about the ways that I structure this course. I have always organized this course, and others, around conversations, taking Kenneth Burke’s “parlor metaphor” to heart that conversations continue onwards, ceaselessly, even when participants leave. … Read More “What is an American?”: Early American Literature Course Syllabus

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+ american literature, classroom, Pedagogy, short story, southern literature, syllabus

American Literature (1865-present) Course

by Unknown's avatar

It has been a few years since I have taught an American literature survey course, either from the colonial period to 1865 or from 1865 to the present. When I teach survey courses likes this, ones that span multiple decades and centuries, I usually use an anthology. This semester, though, I wanted to try something different. Instead of using an anthology, which would limit … Read More American Literature (1865-present) Course

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+ al green, america, american history, american literature, donald trump, JD Vance, mike johnson, politics

“This is an us problem!”: We Must Recognize Ourselves to Move Forward

by Unknown's avatar

Last week, during Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress, I noticed, for the first time, the fasces on each side of the podium. The fasces is an ancient symbol dating back to he Etruscans and Rome. Fasces consists of a bound bundle of rods and an axe. You can find fasces, just like swastikas, in various places. When walking around Washington D.C., you can … Read More “This is an us problem!”: We Must Recognize Ourselves to Move Forward

+ african american literature, american literature, ernest j gaines, gothic literature, louisiana literature, of love and dust, southern literature

The Most Important Twentieth-Century American Novel

by Unknown's avatar

Whenever I look I look at a list of the most important twentieth century American novels and novelists, the same names pop up again and again: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison. While each of these authors and their works are important, for various reasons, I do not see any of them as penning the quintessential twentieth … Read More The Most Important Twentieth-Century American Novel

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+ american literature, georgia literature, lillian e smith, Literature, race, religion, strange fruit

Lillian Smith and the “Sex-Race-Religion-Economics” Tangle

by Unknown's avatar

Over the past week, I’ve been reading Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream for my Women in the Civil Rights Memoir course and her debut novel Strange Fruit for a book club at the end of January. If memory serves, this is the third, maybe fourth, time I have read each of these books. However, I have never read them at the same time, moving back and forth between the … Read More Lillian Smith and the “Sex-Race-Religion-Economics” Tangle

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