link to Course Guidelines page link to Path 1 calendar page link to Class Discussion page link to Path 2 Calendar page link to Essay Prompts page


Sequence 6: British & American Modernism
Calendar for Class Discussion & Exams ("Path 1")

“But he kept this knowledge of his fear thrust firmly down in him;
his courage to live depended upon how successfully his fear
was hidden from his consciousness" (42).
Richard Wright's Native Son (1940)



for pre-class "points for reflection," click on the
colored bar above each day's assigned readings

Date
Readings: Path I
Topics
link to study questions for class on Tuesday, September 15
T, 1-9

Battlegrounds
Thomas Hardy's "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" (1915; 1916), PDF
H. D.'s "Loss" (1916), PDF
W. B. Yeats's "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" (1918; 1919), PDF
Gwendolyn Bennett's "Hatred" (1922), PDF
Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones's) "The Invention of Comics" (1964), PDF
Life Is Layered, Part 1: "Dirt, Digging, and Cultural Engagement"
SUBSCRIBE to Digging in the Dirt
  • course guidelines
  • themes: global, ideological, and personal pressures
  • format: slideshow-directed discussion
R, 1-11
 This Silent Grief
Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901), chps. 1-6
Letter from Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, Norton Critical 204
Letter from Chesnutt to Houghton, Mifflin, Norton Critical 208-209
Chesnutt's "The Courts and the Negro" (1908), excerpt, Norton Critical 224-26
Chesnutt's "The White and the Black" (1901), excerpt, Norton Critical 228-31
  • topic: historical context
  • format: roundtable discussion
T, 1-16 NO CLASS
TUES. CLASSES FOLLOW MON. SCHEDULE, W24
Watch this if you haven't yet: Life Is Layered, Part 1: "Dirt, Digging, and Cultural Engagement"		  
R, 1-18 Remorse of Conscience
Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901), chps. 7-15
"A Negro Festival," from the New York Tribune (July 20, 1870), Norton Critical 343-46
"The Cake Walk," from the New York Times (Feb. 18, 1892), Norton Critical 351-52
Life Is Layered, Part 2: "The Sensuous Surface"
  • pre-class film clip: scene from The Jazz Singer (1927) involving black face
  • topic: the sensuous surface
  • format: small group exercise
T, 1-23 A Slender Stream at Best [class WILL occur via Zoom]
Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901), chps. 16-24
The 1898 Wilmington Riot, Norton Critical 248-69
Life Is Layered, Part 3: "Equality and the Disenfranchised"
  • format: roundtable conversation
R, 1-25 A Cultivated Conscience [class WILL occur IN PERSON]
Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901), chps. 25-31
Stephen P. Knadler's "Untragic Mulatto" (1996), excerpt, Norton Critical 499-507
  • format: choreographed debate
T, 1-30
 A Life of Vengeance and Cruelty
Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901), chps. 32-37
Each student will bring 4-5 self-generated questions concerning the final chapters of The Marrow of Tradition to help drive discussion. Dr. M's intro. to Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920)
Oscar Micheaux's Within our Gates (1920), 1h, 19m, watch via Kanopy; contains scenes involving lynching and sexual assault
  • format: student-created discussion questions about novel; slideshow-driven discussion of film

link to study questions for class on Thursday, September 17
R, 2-1

Art and Artifice in Ireland
W. B. Yeats's "The Stolen Child" (1886, 1889), PDF
W. B. Yeats's "Adam's Curse" (Nov. 1902; 1902, 1903), PDF
W. B. Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium" (1926; 1927, 1928), PDF
James Joyce's "Eveline" (1904) in Dubliners (1914), PDF
James Joyce's "Araby” (1905) in Dubliners (1914), PDF
  • topic: visions of Ireland, real and imagined
  • format: roundtable discussion

link to study questions for class on Tuesday, September 22
T, 2-6

A Soft Kind of Rock
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907): chps. 1-2
Paul Laurence Dunbar's "The Scapegoat" (1904), Dover 45-56
  • topic: modernist, indeterminate tone
  • format: slideshow-directed discussion

link to study questions for class on Thursday, September 24
R, 2-8

This World of Contradictions
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907): chps. 3-5
Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" (1914; 1916), PDF
Siegfried Sassoon's "Glory of Women" (1917), PDF
Siegfried Sassoon's "They" (1919), PDF
Siegfried Sassoon's "Everyone Sang" (Apr. 1919), PDF
  • topic: conflicting perspectives

link to study questions for class on Tuesday, September 29
T, 2-13

The Bottom of the Matter
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907): chps. 6-8
Wilfred Owen's "Disabled" (1917), PDF
  • topics: disability and difference
  • format: sml grp discuss & report

link to study questions for class on Thursday, October 1
R, 2-15

Partly Mysterious
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907): chps. 9-11
H.D.'s "Sea Poppies" (1916), PDF
Life Is Layered, Part 4: "Psychological Substance"
Midterm Exam Study Guide / PDF

  • topic: female interiorities
  • format: debate

link to study questions for class on Tuesday, October 6

T, 2-20

Struggling Against Terror and Despair
Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907): chps. 12-13
Dr. M's intro. to Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), coming soon at Digging in the Dirt
Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), 1h, 16m, watch at YouTube
  • topics: genre, tone, and story
    format: discussion, lecture on narrative modalities: PDF, video

R, 2-22

What We Have Lost
Claude McKay's "The White House" (1922), PDF
T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" (1924-25; 1925), PDF
W. H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1938; 1940), PDF
EXAM #1: closed-book essay & objective [80 min.] / bring blue book and 100-question scantron
  • topics: suffering & the overlooked
link to study questions for class on Tuesday, October 13

T, 2-27

Religious Wranglings
W. E. B. DuBois's "Jesus Christ in Texas" (1920), Dover 72-80
Angelina Weld Grimké's "The Puppet-Player" (1923), PDF
Philip Larkin's "Church Going" (1955), PDF
T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" (1927), PDF
Fenton Johnson's "The Old Repair Man," PDF
Life Is Layered, Part 5: "Spiritual Substratum"
  • topics: faith, loss, death, hope
  • format: roundtable discussion
R, 2-29

Holding onto Space
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1928; 1929), chps. 1-3
Zora Neale Hurston's "Muttsy" (1926), Dover 99-112
TERM PAPER assigned / explanatory video
  • topic: ____
  • format: passage analysis
T, 3-5

Sexual Divisions and Synergies
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1928; 1929), chps. 4-6
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, being born a woman and distressed" (1923), PDF
Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is Not All" (1931), PDF
  • topic: identity & society
  • format: sml grp passage analysis exercise
Mon.., Mar. 4 thru Fri., Mar. 8 PAPER CONFERENCES
email term paper outline to Dr. M and everyone in your Path 2 group before attending one-hour workshopping of outlines

  

R, 3-7

Gaming the Gaze
Dr. M's intro. to Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), coming soon at Digging in the Dirt
Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), rent at YouTube
 EXAM #2: closed-book essay [60 min.]
  • format: roundtable discussion

T, 3-12

Responding to the Inexplicable
Gwendolyn Bennett's "Heritage" (1922), PDF
Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1954-55; 1956), online
F. O'Connor's "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" (1954; 1955), PDF
James Baldwin's "Letter to My Nephew" from The Fire Next Time (1963), PDF
Bring to Class Dr. M's comments on your Path 2 short essay and your Impassioned Pleas (on tablet, laptop, or hard copy--NOT PHONE)

  • topic: death, loss, and transformation
  • format: roundtable discussion

R, 3-14

Resistance, Refashioning, and Revolution
Dorothy West's "Mammy" (1940), Dover 158-65
Ann Petry's "The Bones of Louella Brown" (1947), Dover 166-78
Langston Hughes's "Afro-American Fragment" (1959), PDF
Langston Hughes's "Dream Variations" (1959), PDF
  • format: sml grp chalk art

W, 3-20
TERM PAPER due Wednesday, Mar. 20 by 11:59 p.m.
(send Word file with .doc extension via email)

 
BELOW WAS CUT FROM CALENDAR

T, 3-12

Post-War Wastelands
Samuel Beckett's Endgame (1957), PDF
Dr. M's intro. to McPherson's Endgame at Digging in the Dirt
watch Conor McPherson's Endgame (2000) at YouTube
  • topic: the human situation; race
  • format:slideshow-directed discussion

Dr. Hampsey teaching Dunbar's "The Mask" and DuBois's Souls in 304 (F23)
Dr. Forster teaching both Dunbar and DuBois in 304 (W24) Also Chopin and Conrad (Heart of Darkness).


Dorothea Tanning's surrealist painting entitled Far From Home, portraying multicolored bodies dissolviing into a fog-like background
Far From Home (1964)
Dorothea Tanning


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu