Topic outline

  • ENGLISH 52B US FICTION 1945 to the Present: GENERAL RESOURCES FOR THE CLASS

    Download or print and consult these materials weekly.  Includes both a course description and a syllabus of all the weekly assignments.

    Note:  we'll also be regularly using the Blog.

    SEE ALSO THE BRIEF THEORETICAL AND SPECULATIVE ESSAYS BELOW (articles and a web link to a TED talk) THAT WILL BE RELEVANT FOR ALL THE BOOKS WE'LL READ THIS SEMESTER.  THEY TAKE VERY DIFFERENT, BUT I BELIEVE COMPLEMENTARY, APPROACHES TOWARD UNDERSTANDING BROAD RECENT DEVELOPMENTS BUT IN FICTION AND IN THE WORLD WE'RE LIVING IN.  

    Also included below are some guides toward writing better papers on literature:  how to craft a strong thesis, and how to use textual evidence in making an argument. Please consult these before writing paper #1--especially if this course is your first or second Swarthmore English course.

    • WAs and WA student assignments for English 52B File

      Who's your WA?  download and keep this file for your reference.  Includes handy email addresses.  Correct as of Feb. 12.  Email Prof. Schmidt if you find any errors.

    • ENGLISH 52B COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND SYLLABUS ASSIGNMENTS File

      Updated 19 January 7pm.

      DOWNLOAD AND/OR PRINT THIS DOCUMENT AND CONSULT IT WEEKLY FOR ALL READING ASSIGNMENTS.  Students are responsible for reading and understanding the English 52B Course Requirements.  If you have any questions about these, please consult with Prof. Schmidt.

    • Blog Posting Schedule File

      Reposted here 29 January; please download this current copy and consult it.

      For guidelines on crafting a good post, see the English 52B syllabus.

    • GENERAL GUIDELINES for BETTER English 52B PAPERS Folder

      I  recommend you read all files included here; all are brief but offer very good advice for writing strong College-level English literature papers.

    • General Description of the books for English 52B File

      Includes a list of the assigned and optional readings, plus a brief description of all of the books.  All books are available via the Swarthmore College Bookstore.   For a complete description of the English 52B course requirements and the syllabus, see the accompanying file.

    • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk, "The Danger of a Single Story" URL

      There's a reason why this talk by one of the authors we're reading this semester has earned over 1 million (!!) views on YouTube.

      Listen and learn.  What she says applies not just to her fiction, but to the very reason why we read fiction and listen to poetry.

    • on "pulp" fiction and modernism/postmodernism File

      by Louis Menand.  from The New Yorker, Jan. 5, 2015.

    • The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur URL

      By William Deresiewicz.  Published in The Atlantic magazine, December 28, 2014.  

      Recommended general reading for English 52B.  I disagree with the author's claim that these 3 categories of artist are entirely separate from each other and occupy distinctly different historical periods.  But I think you'll find this essay stimulating reading—as I did—and helpful as we get to know all the artist-writers we'll look at this semester, from Jack Kerouac through Ruth Ozeki, Sandra Cisneros, Thomas Pynchon, and Gary Shteyngart.

    • Gish Jen and David Palumbo-Liu on the interdependent self in narrative File

      Please read summaries of these 2 important recent meditations on literature, empathy, and the interdependent self.  Jen, a superb contemporary U.S. novelist who's been featured in both English 52B and my short story course (English 71D), argues that Western fiction, especially U.S. fiction, has far too often conceived of narrative as the story of the individual self against the world.  She argues that particularly now we need stories about how to understand healthy vs. unhealthy interdependence, stories of the self linked to others.  Palumbo-Liu, a U.S. literary critic and cultural studies theorist, asks why when we talk about empathizing with others in fiction or in life we emphasize sameness rather than listen to difference.  Why?   (My students often say, "I liked this book because the characters were very relatable."  What does that mean, really?  That we only are interested in the stories of others when we think they are like us?)

      Jen's and Palumbo-Liu's ideas, briefly elaborated here, will be relevant for all the books we read in U.S. fiction this semester.

    • Essay: on changing notions of character and story in recent TV shows URL

      TV’s New Girls’ Club, By LILI LOOFBOUROW

      "Great shows used to be about fallen masculinity. Now they’re about collaboration and resilience. What changed?"  

      This essay focuses on influential TV shows from The Sopranos and Breaking Bad to Orange Is the New Black, but its reflections on character, plot, and story-telling techniques are very relevant for considering post-World War II U.S. fiction as well.   

    • Wieseltier essay on technology and culture and change URL

      "Among the Disrupted," By LEON WIESELTIER

      "There is no more urgent task for American writers than to think critically about the salience, even the tyranny, of technology."

      "The humanistic [interpretive] methods that were practiced before digitalization will be even more urgent after digitalization."

    • Why Are We So Obsessed by the Great American Novel? URL

      Two fine short essays putting this question in historical context and giving us some smart and useful answers.

      Authors:  Cheryl Strayed and Adam Kirsch

    • A recent essay on fiction reviewing--relevant for writing literature papers too URL

      "Brief Thoughts on Arrogance":  a short New Yorker essay on book reviewing BY 

  • Kerouac

    READ APPROXIMATELY HALF OF DHARMA BUMS FOR OUR FIRST CLASS ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 20th.  FINISH THE NOVEL FOR THURSDAY, JAN. 22.

  • Hemingway

  • Roth

    • Ephron

      3 pieces with biographical and other info on Nora Ephron.  You can also explore the Wikipedia page on her life and career if you'd like.

    • Robinson

    • Maupin

      • Olympia Dukakis on playing Anna Madrigal URL

        Listen to the actress Olympia Dukakis describe how she learned how to "become" the transgender heroine Anna Madrigal in the TV production of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, a series of novels that began in the early 1970s, of which Michael Tolliver Lives is part.  Her speech is eloquent and moving, well worth 20 minutes of your time.  

      • Armistead Maupin interview 2014 URL

        At the San Francisco Public Library, Oct. 30, 2014.   Lasts 1 hr, but well worth your time if you're enjoying Michael Tolliver Lives and want to go deeper.

        Maupin tells tales of the origins of Tales of the City, in the early 70s and beyond.

         

    • Cisneros

      stories from Woman Hollering Creek to read for Tuesday (just 2 short ones):  Eleven, Barbie-Q.   Re Eleven, see also the link below.

      stories to read for Thursday:  

      Woman Hollering creek 
      The Marlboro man
      Anguiano religious articles rosaries statues
      Little miracles, kept promises
      There was a man, there was a woman
      Tin tan tan
      Bien pretty.

    • Adichie [also in this section below is the upload link for your paper #1]

      March 17, 19, 24: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2013).  Read chs. 1-15 for our first class; chs. 16-36 for our second; and chs. 37 to the end for our final class.

      • ZS interviews CNA URL

        The novelist Zadie Smith interviews Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture in New York, 2014.   Adichie reads part of ch. 1 of Americanah and you'll hear the narrative voice's capturing of the heroine Ifemelu's wit and humor.  PS: there's a "Lost Signal" moment near the middle, but the signal's soon restored.

        Also, if you haven't listened to it already, go to near the top of this 52B Moodle page for the link to one of Adichie's two famous TEDx talks, "The Danger of a Single Story."

      • #Lighten Up — On skin tone + racial politics in comics URL

        Skin color codes:  In a beautifully illustrated comic on The Nib website, cartoonist Ronald Wimberly relays the story of working with an editor who asked him to lighten the skin tone of a character he was working on, Melita Garner, who had been described as Mexican and African-American, a reporter, and Wolverine's ex-girlfriend.  (Apparently later the narrative of her ethnicity changed, as you'll see.)  Worth your time!  Easy to imagine a blog entry by Ifemelu on this--

      • Upload your paper #1 using this link: by 5pm Friday March 20. Assignment

        Please use Word .docx format if possible when you upload your final draft.   WA papers will be too hard to upload, so hand in to me personally the printed version with the WA comments.  I'll use that when I read and comment on your online paper.

        Turn in your WA'd draft with comments to PS either in class on the 19th or 24th, or by placing it by March 24 in the mailbox outside of my office, LPAC 206.

        Late papers or papers submitted without a WA'd draft will receive a grade penalty, as the syllabus explains.  

    • Ozeki

       March 26, 31, and April 2: Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (2013).  Read approximately 1/3 of the novel for each of our 3 classes.

      April 2: Ozeki is planning to visit our class!

      April 2, 4:15pm: reading and talk by Ozeki.  Required attendance for English 52B students. 

      For more information on Ozeki and A Tale for the Time Being, see:

      http://www.ruthozeki.com/writing-film/a-tale-for-the-time-being/

    • Johnson

      For our first class on Charles Johnson's The Middle Passage (1990), read chapters 1-6.   (Though good luck stopping there: the book is very suspenseful.)

      Each chapter is an "Entry" written in the slave-ship Republic's salvaged logbook by our protagonist anti-hero and ex-slave, Rutherford Calhoun.

      For our second class, finish the novel (chs. 7-9).  

    • Pynchon

    • Shteyngart

      • The "Book Trailer" as Self-Parody: for Super Sad True Love Story URL

        The "Book Trailer" as Self-Parody: Stars Gary Shteyngart with James Franco.  For Super Sad True Love Story.

      • how to pronounce the ä in äppärät URL

        This is (intentionally?) somewhat hard to do…   Is it just me, or does the ä sound like the vowel in "meh"?  Oops, sorry, old-school irony at work.  Must get more extro.

      • Key Terms in Super Sad True Love Story URL

        Annotations prepared by Swarthmore students in English 52B, Spring 2013, and published (!) on my blog.

        Fun and interesting--check them out.  Includes annotation for "äppärät."   It takes clicking on several links to get to the pdf itself--sorry.

      • a different angle on Eunice Park and her family URL

        Because there are some similarities between Eddie Huang's parents (Taiwanese American) and Eunice Park's (Korean American), I recommend reading this article on the man whose memoir inspired Fresh Off the Boat, a new ABC comedy.  By Wesley Yang, The New York Times Magazine, Feb. 9, 2015.

      • "What I learned from watching a week of Russian TV" URL

        "‘Out of My Mouth Comes Unimpeachable Manly Truth’:  What I learned from watching a week of Russian TV."

        A Feb. 18 New York Times essay by GARY SHTEYNGART.  Not directly relevant for Super Sad, but I recommend this optional reading if you'd like to read more by Shteyngart.

    • Sample A papers (anonymous)

      Here are some papers from our class that I judged to be A or A- papers.  If you'd like to see what an A paper looks like, read from these and learn from them.

      The strengths of their writing and their interpretive moves are obviously inspired in part by the particular authors they're discussing.  But these papers'  lively writing and powerful literary analysis--especially in dealing with quoted evidence and carefully presenting interpretive reasoning--provide a model to follow for any paper about literature.

    • Friday, May 1: Paper #2 due

      Use the link provided to upload paper #2.  Use Word (.docx preferred).  This paper does not need to be WA'd, but you're welcome to do so: just plan ahead.  See syllabus for further instructions.

    • This topic

      UPLOAD YOUR FINAL EXAM ESSAY HERE, USING THE LINK BELOW

      Please use Word (.docx preferred) as the file format for your Final Exam essay.  You  have until the end of exam week (Saturday, May 16, 5pm) to complete and upload your exam essay.   Please do not email me the exam, and don't use the pdf format (it's too hard to comment on in ways that everyone can access; we all seem to have different pdf "readers."  Late exams will have a grade penalty.