BASC64222 - Alumni Sequence: The American Tradition Year 2
Course Description
In this Winter Quarter seminar, we consider a set of distinctively American writers and ideas. First we examine William James’ Pragmatism, in which James describes and defends our country’s most original school of philosophical thought. Next, we learn how The Education of Henry Adams suited him perfectly for the previous century, but not the one in which he was born. Then, we study several significant decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States, focusing on substantive due process of law and the right to privacy. Finally, we turn to the powerful novel by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the Winter Quarter tutorial, we read works by five masters of the short story: Poe reinventing the form for a modern world then just being born, Henry James developing the form into something capacious and grand, Hemingway honing and focusing the genre to suit the conditions of literature and life in the years after the Great War, Faulkner again stretching the story onto a grander last, with a retrospective refocus grounding in the ever-present past, and O’Connor again tightening the form to focus on sensibilities and societies grounded in the American past as it stretched into mid-century.
Course Outline
Winter Readings:
Tutorial:
Poe, The Dover Reader, Dover Thrift Editions, ISBN 978-0486791197
James, Selected Tales Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0140436945
Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories, Finca Vigia Edition, Scribner, ISBN 978-0684843322
Faulkner, Collected Stories of William Faulkner, Vintage International, ISBN 978-0679764038
O'Connor, The Complete Stories, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Classics, ISBN 978-0374515362
Seminar:
James, Pragmatism and Other Writings, Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0140437355.
Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Modern Library. ISBN 9780679640103.
Zola Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 978-0061120060.
Course packets of Wallace Stevens poems and Supreme Court Decisions will be provided.
Notes
Online registration deadline: Dec. 22, 5 PM CT
Remote courses require you to login to Canvas to access the Zoom Classroom. You will receive an invitation to join Canvas about a week before your course begins. Please visit the Liberal Arts Student Resources page to find step by step instructions for Canvas and Zoom: Online Learning Resources