Engl 565 American Genre: Short Story Cycles

Fall Semester 2005

MWF 10:00-10:50, Grubbs 312

Instructor: Dr. Kathleen L. Nichols

Reading Schedule

• Week One

Nineteenth Century

• 08-22  Introduction
• 08-24  Herman Melville, "The Piazza" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" in The Piazza Tales
• 08-26  Melville, "Benito Cereno" (read 1/2)

• Week Two

• 08-29  Melville, "Benito Cereno" (read last 1/2)
• 08-31  Melville,"Lightning-Rod Man" and "The Encantadas" (read 1/2)
• 09-02  Melville, ""The Encantadas" (read last 1/2) and "The Bell Tower"

• Week Three

• 09-05  NO CLASS (Labor Day holiday)
• 09-07  Sarah Orne Jewett, Chapters I-VII ("The Return," "Mrs. Todd," "Schoolhouse," "At the Schoolhouse Window," "Captain Littlepage," "Waiting Place," "Outer Island") in Country of the Pointed Firs
• 09-09  Jewett, Chapters VIII-XII ("Green Island," "William," "Where Pennyroyal Grew," "The Old Singers," "A Strange Sail")

• Week Four

• 09-12  Jewett, Chapters VIII-XVII ("Poor Joanna," "Hermitage," "On Shell-Heap Island," "Great Expedition," "Country Road")
• 09-14  Jewett, Chapters XVIII-XXI ("Bowden Reunion," "Feast's End," "Along Shore," "Backward View")
• 09-16  Charles W. Chesnutt,"Goopered Grapevine," "Po' Sandy," "Mars Jeems's Nightmare" in Conjure Tales

• Week Five

• 09-19  Chesnutt,"Conjurer's Revenge," "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," "Gray Wolf's Ha'nt"
• 09-21  Chesnutt, "Hot-Foot Hannibal" and "Dave's Neckliss"

• 09-21  TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE. You may email it to me.

• Week Six

Modernist Period

• 09-26  Sherwood Anderson,"Book of Grotesque," "Hands," "Paper Pills," "Mother," "Philosopher" in Winesburg, Ohio
• 09-28  Anderson, "Nobody Knows," "Godliness I, II, III, IV." PAPER #1 ASSIGNED: Due 10-10.
• 09-30  Anderson, "Man of Ideas," "Adventure," "Respectability," "Thinker."

• Week Seven

• 10-03  Anderson, "Tandy," "Strength of God," "Teacher," "Loneliness," "Awakening"
• 10-05  Anderson, "Queer," "Untold Lie," "Drink," "Death"
• 10-07  Anderson, "Sophistication" and "Departure."

• Week Eight

• 10-10  Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time 11-35. PAPER #1 DUE.
• 10-12  Hemingway, In Our Time 37-77. OUTSIDE PROJECT ASSIGNED (805-students only): Due 11-07.
• 10-14  NO CLASS (Mid-term Break)

• Week Nine

• 10-17  Hemingway, In Our Time 79-112.
• 10-19  Hemingway, In Our Time 113-157
• 10-21  Flannery O'Connor,"Everything that Rises Must Converge" and "Greenleaf" in Three by Flannery O'Connor.

• Week Ten

• 10-24  O'Connor,"View of the Woods"
• 10-26  O'Connor,"Enduring Chill" and "Comforts of Home"
• 10-28  O'Connor, "Lame Shall Enter First"

• Week Eleven

• 10-31  O'Connor, "Revelation"

• 11-02  TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE. You may email it to me.

Contemporary Period

• 11-04  John Barth, "Frame-Tale," "Night-sea Journey," "Ambrose his Mark" in Lost in the Funhouse.

• Week Twelve

• 11-07  Barth, "Autobiography," "Water-Message," "Petition." OUTSIDE PROJECT DUE.
• 11-02  Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse," "Echo."
• 11-04  Barth, "Title," "Glossolalia," "Life-Story."

• Week Thirteen

• 11-14  Barth, "Anonymiad."
• 11-16  Sandra Cisneros, "My Lucy Friend," "Eleven," "Salvador," "Mexican Movies," "Barbie-Q," "Mericans," "Tepeyac," "One Holy Night" in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
• 11-18  Cisneros, "My Tocaya," "Woman Hollering Creek," "Marlboro Man," "La Faulosa," "Remember the Alamo"

• Week Fourteen

• 11-21  Cisneros, "Never Marry a Mexican," "Bread," "Eyes of Zapapta (read 1/2). PAPER #2 ASSIGNED: Due 12-02.
• 11-23 and 11-25 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)

• Week Fifteen

• 11-28  Cisneros, "Eyes of Zapapta" (read last half), "Anguiano Religious," "Little Miracles," "Las Boxers," "There Was a Man," "Tin Tan Tan"
• 11-30  Cisneros, "Bien Pretty"
• 12-02  Gerald Vizenor, "Almost Browne," "Feral Lasers" in Landfill Meditation: Crossblood Stories. PAPER #2 DUE.

• Week Sixteen

• 12-05  Vizenor, to be assigned
• 12-07  Vizenor, to be assigned
• 12-09  Vizenor, to be assigned

FINAL TAKE-HOME EXAM DUE: Mon., 12-12