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.

  • Kerouac

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

  • Hemingway

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.