Prof. J. M. Dean
Office Hours: M 2, T 11, W 10, F 11
209 Memorial Hall dean@udel.edu
831-1970
fax 831-1586
---. The Jumping Frog and Eighteen Other Stories. ISBN: 1585092002. [Frog]
---. Roughing It. NY: Penguin/Signet Classic, 1980. ISBN 0-451-52407-1. [Rough]
Geertz, Clifford. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books, 1983. [Geertz]
Harte, Bret. Selected Stories and Sketches. World's Classics. NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995. ISBN 0-19-282354-X. [Harte]
Kroeber, Theodora. Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1961. ISBN 0-520-00675-5. [Ishi1]
---. Ishi Last of His Tribe. NY: Bantam, 1964. ISBN 0-553-24898-7. [Ishi2]
Miller, Joaquin. Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History. Berkeley, CA: Heyday/Urion, 1996. ISBN 0-930588-79-7. [Miller]
Muir, John. The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures.
Yosemite: Yosemite Association, 1994. ISBN 0-939666-75-A. [Muir]
Access to the Internet for specific web searches.
Introduction. Read "The Argonauts of '49," in Harte, pp. 261-82, and Ishi1 through chapter chapter 6 (to page 120).
Week Two (19 Feb.): Native Americans
Finish Ishi1. Also read "Blurred Genres" from Geertz.
Week Three (26 Feb.): Anglo tales
Read Harte.
Week Four (5 March): Anglo humor
Read Twain Frog.
Week Six (12 March): Journalism
Read Twain Rough to page 246.
First outside essay due.
Week Seven (19 March): Web sites
Exploration of web sites.
Spring Break
Week Eight (2 April)
Summary of work to date.
Week Nine (9 April): Fact & fiction
Read Miller to page 201.
Week Ten (16 April): Modoc wars
Finish Miller.
Week Eleven (23 April): Anthropology & Literature
Read Geertz.
Week Twelve (30 April): Research reports
Each student will speak for 5 minutes on their final papers on their research findings
Week Thirteen (7 May): Wilderness
Read Muir. Showing of slides and pictures of Ansel Adams and Chiuro Obata.
Week Fourteen (14 May): More fact & fiction
Read Ishi2
Revised Course DescriptionThis interdisciplinary course--literature, history, ecology, anthropology, ethnology--will focus on the Gold Rush of 1849, its tragic consequences for Native Americans in California, and the concomitant destruction of wilderness areas. We will read about colorful and strong-willed people in mining camps and recently-"settled" territories, who fashioned new identities for themselves while deliberately or inadvertently eliminating those who already occupied these lands. Topics for exploration may include self-fashioning, the boundaries of fiction and life, "tall tales," humor and the west, immigration and the American experience. Authors will include Bret Harte (his collection of stories and sketches), Mark Twain (Jumping Frog, Roughing It, The Autobiography), Joaquin Miller (Life Amongst the Modocs), Theodora Kroeber (Ishi in Two Worlds, Ishi, the Last Yahi). To help us with anthropological material, we will study Clifford Geertz's Local Knowledge. We will pay special attention to California geography, including Yosemite Park (The Wild Muir), Placerville and the Gold Rush area, the region around Mt. Lassen (where Ishi and the Yana and Yahi Indians lived), and the region around Mt. Shasta (where the Modoc Indians lived). This course, a Second Writing course, fulfills the 1700-1900 distribution requirement for the English major. Students will keep a journal and write a four-page paper and a ten-page paper; there will be no formal examinations, but I expect generous and full class discussion from all students in the course. |
Topics for exploration in the course:essentialism (versus constructionism), racism, political (in)correctness; wilderness and environmentalism; novel writing and the "art of fact"; storytelling as lying or as political activism; humor and storytelling; colonialism and postcolonialism; exploration, "mapping," the American democratic character; history and historicism; human rights and human dignity. |