August 31, 2000

The bookstore is out of copies of Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, so students should buy it at a bookstore in the general area.

The class will be moving to a new room: GRB 212W (George R. Brown Hall)

In the early 1970s, empowered by the civil rights and women's   movements, a new group of women writers began speaking to the American public. Their topic, broadly defined, was the postmodern American West. However, despite the attentions of publishers, the media, and millions of readers, literary scholars have rarely addressed this movement or its writers.

Too many critics, still enamored of western images that are both masculine and antimodern, have been slow to reckon with the emergence of a new, far more feminine, postmodern, multiracial, and urban West. In this course, we rethink the field of western cultural studies so that it engages issues of gender and race and is more self-conscious about space itself-especially that most cherished symbol of western authenticity, open landscape. Reading works by Didion, Coleman, Kingston, Silko, Kingsolver, Houston, and others, we discuss how these, and other writers, have mapped new geographical imaginations upon the cultural and social spaces of today's  American West.

Gloria Anzaldua, La Frontera/The Borderlands (1986) Wanda Coleman, Native in a Strange Land (1996) Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays (1970) Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces (1985) Judith Freeman, The Chinchilla Farm (1989) Cynthia Kadohata, In the Heart of the Valley of Love (1992) Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams (1987) Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey (1989) Joy Nicholson, The Tribes of Palos Verdes (1997) Leslie Silko, Ceremony (1977) Course Packet containing poetry and articles (marked by **) Journal of your choice (preferably lightweight)

ASSIGNMENTS:

Two essays, and a midterm.
 

Essay #1 (5 pages) due Friday Sept. 29th, 4pm. This essay takes up one of the early writers we read (your choice) and offers a close reading of her particular representation of landscape.  Your task is to establish a firm grasp of a single text's rendering of landscape, and to do so argumentatively and economically.  One question important to consider is: what kinds of social values inhere in writers' representations of nature?

Essay #2 (8-10 pages) due Wednesday, Dec. 20, 4pm. The final essay (10-12 pages) again offers a close reading of a particular text (your choice), but now is informed by a sense of the writer's critical reception.  By "critical reception" I mean you should be aware of several book reviews and/or critical essays.  Your essay will take up some significant aspect of what we'll call "western geographical imaginations," and, in conversation with a book reviewer or critic, you will discuss how your writer uses or re-makes that imaginary. The first essay will have given you practice in analyzing the classic symbol of the geographic imaginary-western landscape.  There are many other recurrent features, however, which class discussions will cover (ie, the West as a land associated with Indians, the West as a place to start over, the West as the terrain against which American character was formed, the West as a masculine proving ground, the West as a safeguard from modern evils, the West as a landscape of desire, etc.).  Because so many of our writers are invested in re-writing the Old or mythic west, you'll want to think about the ways your writer engages (or doesn't engage) that revisionist effort.  How does she re-make western geographical imaginations?  What pitfalls remain?  This is a sophisticated question, but if you DO NOT MISS CLASS DISCUSSIONS, you'll be prepared to take it on.

Midterm: The exam covers your grasp of the conceptual frameworks of the course as well as your familiarity with specific texts.  I will provide a study sheet for your preparation.

Course Journal:
Journals provide a regular place for you to think and write about the material we cover without worrying about argumentation, polish, or a grade.  In journal entries students often discover paper topics, writers of particular personal interest, questions they want the class to discuss, etc.  By collecting your journals every couple of weeks, I communicate with you, even if you do not speak in class or visit office hours.

General Course Policies and Grades:

If you cannot attend class for consecutive meetings, please let me know.  Because this is a seminar, when you miss one meeting, you miss a week's work.

Please observe page limits for papers.

Late papers will be accepted with a half grade subtracted for each day that a paper is late (weekends are two days). Hand in papers in the English Department on the fifth floor of Fondren, or slip under the door of my office. 5th floor Fondren

The first paper and midterm are worth 20% each. Seminar participation is worth 20%. Your final paper makes up the remaining 40% of your grade.  Your journals can either work for or against you.