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Winter 2005 Advance Course
Information
This information effective for Winter 2005. Check with instructor the
first day of class for any changes.
American
Studies
[AMST-088A] [AMST-145]
88A. Moby-Dick and American
Culture
Thursdays, 8:00-9:45 a.m., Oakes 103
Instructor: Michael Cowan
This one-unit Discovery Seminar will involve a close reading of Melville's
Moby-Dick, published in 1851, as a response to and commentary on
the social, economic, political, and cultural dynamics of his era and
also as a perspective on the United States at the start of the 21st century.
Much of time in our seminar meetings will be devoted to the seminar members'
reading out loud of selected passages from the novel and to our discussion
of ways in which those passages lead us to a consideration of larger issues
raised by the novel. After the first week, members themselves will choose
the passages to discuss. In an average week, students will be expected
to read about 70 pages of the novel. The seminar will meet seven times
during the quarter. The weeks without meetings will be opportunities for
students to read larger sections of the novel than during weeks with meetings.
In keeping with the one-unit format of the seminar, student writing will
be limited to three two-page papers discussing issues raised in passages
the students have chosen. Students' grades will be based on these papers
and on the quality of their participation in discussion.
Copies of Moby-Dick are available at the Bay Tree Bookstore. I
recommend purchase of the Penguin Classics paperback edition of the novel
(ISBN 0-14-243724-7). However, we'll be able to accommodate students who
choose to use another edition.
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145. Mark Twain and America
Note: This syllabus from a previous quarter—to be used as
a guide only
Instructor: Forrest Robinson
Office: Oakes 205
Phone: 459-4566 (message 459-2813)
Office Hours: TBA
Mark Twain:
The Innocents Abroad
Roughing It
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Life on the Mississippi
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins
Great Short Works of Mark Twain (GSW)
The books are on sale at the Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust Street ,
Santa Cruz.
Attendance is required at all class meetings. More than two unexcused
absences will be grounds for a No Record in the course. There will be
occasional quizzes.
Students will be required to submit two essays. The first, of 3-4 pages,
on a topic to be assigned in class, will be due on Tuesday, May 7. The
second, of 6-8 pages, on a topic of your own selection (in consultation
with the instructor), will be due on Tuesday, May 30.
| Date |
Reading |
| Tu Mar 26 |
Introduction |
| Th Mar 28 |
Mark Twain, Life and Times: "The Private History of
a Campaign that Failed" (GSW) |
| Tu Apr 2 |
"The Jumping Frog" (GSW), "How to Tell
a Story" (GSW), "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (GSW) |
| Th Apr 4 |
The Innocents Abroad, Chs. 1-8, 12-13, 18-27,
34, 46-50, 53-end |
| Tu Apr 9 |
Roughing It, Chs. 1-11, 19, 24-25, 28, 32-34,
40-42, 48, 53-61, 64, 77-79, Appendix C |
| Th Apr 11 |
Tom Sawyer |
| Tu Apr 16 |
Tom Sawyer |
| Th Apr 18 |
Life on the Mississippi |
| Tu Apr 23 |
Life on the Mississippi, "The Facts Concerning
the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" (GSW) |
| Th Apr 25 |
Huckleberry Finn |
| Tu Apr 30 |
Huckleberry Finn |
| Th May 2 |
Huckleberry Finn |
| Tu May 7 |
Huckleberry Finn (3-4 page essay due) |
| Th May 9 |
Connecticut Yankee |
| Tu May 14 |
Connecticut Yankee |
| Th May 16 |
Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins |
| Tu May 21 |
Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins |
| Th May 23 |
"Corn-Pone Opinions," "The United States
of Lyncherdom," "To the Person Sitting in Darkness,"
"The War Prayer" (GSW), "The Turning Point of My Life"
(GSW) |
| Tu May 28 |
"The Mysterious Stranger" (GSW) (6-8 page
paper due) |
| Th May 30 |
No Class Meeting |
On Reserve
James Cox, Mark Twain, The Fate of Humor
Thomas Inge, ed, Huck Finn Among the Critics
Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain
Forrest Robinson, ed, The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain
Forrest Robinson, In Bad Faith: The Dynamics of Deception in Mark
Twain's America
Henry Nash Smith, Mark Twain, The Development of a Writer
Recommended
Kenneth Andrews, Nook Farm: Mark Twain's Hartford Circle
Walter Blair, Mark Twain and Huck Finn
Richard Bridgeman, Traveling in Mark Twain
Louis Budd, Our Mark Twain: The Making of His Public Personality
Sherwood Cummings, Mark Twain and Science
Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain's America
Everett Emerson, The Authentic Mark Twain: A Literary Biography of
Samuel Clemens
Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American
Voices
William Gibson, The Art of Mark Twain
Susan Gillman, Dark Twins: Imposture and Identity in Mark Twain's
America
Susan Gillman and Forrest Robinson, eds., Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead
Wilson
Susan Harris, Mark Twain's Escape from Time
Hamlin Hill, Mark Twain: God's Fool
Randall Knoper, Acting Naturally: Mark Twain in the Culture of Performance
James Leonard, Thomas Tenney, and Thadious Davis, eds., Satire or
Evasion? Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn
William Macnaughton, Mark Twain's Last Years as a Writer
Charles Neider, ed., The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Roger Salomon, Twain and the Image of History
Roger Sattlemeyer and Donald Crowley, eds., One Hundred Years of
Huckleberry Finn
Neil Schmitz, Of Huck and Alice: Humorous Writing in American Literature
David Sewell, Mark Twain's Languages
Henry Nash Smith, Mark Twain's Fable of Progress: Political and Economic
Ideas in A Connecticut Yankee
J. D. Stahl, Mark Twain, Culture and Gender
Dixon Wecter, Sam Clemens of Hannibal
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