Week 04 – 18 March
Zitkala-Sa, from Impressions of an Indian Childhood (1900)
Sui Sin Far, “The Land of the Free” (1890)
Anzia Yezierska, “How I Found America” (1920)
In-class: Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” (1883); Various authors, Poetry from Angel Island (20th c.)
Week 05 – 25 March
The British Empire
Joseph Conrad, “The Lagoon” (1897)
George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” (1936)
Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men’s Path” (1953)
In-class: Thomas Hardy, “The Man He Killed” (1906) and “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?” (1913); Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1920); W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1919)
Week 06 – 1 April
Transatlantic Modernism:
Virginia Woolf, “A Haunted House” (1921) and from A Room of One’s Own (1929)
James Joyce, “Araby” (1914)
Poetry: Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (1916) and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923); T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915); Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (1913); William Carlos Williams, “Red Wheelbarrow” (1923) and “This Is Just to Say” (1934)
Week 07 – 8 April
In-class screening: Baz Luhrman, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Week 08 – 22 April
The Harlem Renaissance
W.E.B. DuBois, “The Comet” (1920)
Langston Hughes, “I, Too,” “Harlem,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Theme for English B,” “Let America Be America Again,” (1920-30s)
Claude McKay, “If We Must Die,” “Tropics in New York” (1920s)
Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” from Dust Tracks on a Road, from Tell My Horse (1920-30s)
Week 09 – 29April
The Civil Rights Movement, Before, and After
Richard Wright, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” (1937) and Haikus (1950s)
Ralph Ellison, “A Party Down at the Square” (1930s)
James Baldwin, “Stranger in the Village” (1953)
Poetry: Dudley Randall, “Ballad of Birmingham” (1968); Nikki Giovanni, “Nikki Rosa” and “For Saundra” (1968); Amiri Baraka, “Black Art” (1965); Sonia Sanchez, “14 haiku (for Emmett Louis Till)” (2010)
In class: Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” (1963) and Malcolm X, “Message to Grassroots” (1963)
Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1939), Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam” (1964)
Week 10 – 6 May
Post-WWII Poetry
Allen Ginsberg, “America” and “A Supermarket in California” (1956)
Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus” (1965)
Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art,” “The Moose,” “In the Waiting Room” (1976)
Frank O’Hara, “The Day Lady Died” (1964)
Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” and “The Bean Eaters” (1960)
Seamus Heaney, “Digging” (1964), “Death of a Naturalist” and “Follower” (1966)
Ted Hughes, “Wind” (1957) and “View of a Pig” (1960)
Week 11 – 13 May
Postmodern Identities
Jean Rhys, “Let Them Call It Jazz” (1962)
Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” (1983)
Shani Mootoo, “Out on Main Street” (1993)
Poetry: Melvin Dixon, “Aunt Ida Pieces a Quilt” (1990); Pat Parker, “My Lover is a Woman” (1978); Grace Nichols, from The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1985); Kei Miller, from There is an Anger That Moves (2007)
Week 12 – 20 May
Tim O’Brien, “How to Tell a True War Story” (1990)
Ursula LeGuin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973)
Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings” (1983)
Karen Tei Yamashita, “The Orange” (1991)
Sandra Cisneros, “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” (1991)
Poetry: Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It” (1984); John Ashberry, “Paradoxes and Oxymorons” (1980); Craig Raine, “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” (1979)
Week 13 – 27 May
Hanif Kureshi, “My Son the Fanatic” (1994)
Sherman Alexie, “Dear John Wayne” (2000)
Zadie Smith, “The Lazy River” (2017)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The American Embassy” (2009)
Poetry: selected Chicano poets (1980s-90s); Audre Lorde “The Brown Menace” (1974); Joy Harjo, “Anchorage” (2008); poems by ICE detainees (2010s)
Week 14 – 3 June
Bernadine Evaristo, “ohtakemehomelord.com” (2005)
Junot Diaz, “Monstro” (2012)
Poetry: Lucille Clifton, from Collected Poems (1960s-2000s)
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History of Literature II: Spring 2020 