American Literary Expatriates in Europe Professor Glenda R. Carpio Ca’ Foscari-Harvard Summer School 2017 TF: Nicholas Rinehart

This course explores the fiction and travel literature produced by American writers living in Europe, from the late 19th century to the present. In the course of this period Europe becomes the battlefield for two bloody World Wars as well as the site of a museum past while the USA assumes a dominant role on the world stage. American writers living and traveling in Europe reflect on these shifts and changes while also exploring the various forms of freedom and complex set of contradictions that expatriate life affords. We will focus on American literature set in Europe with readings that include but are not limited to essays, travelogues, poems, novellas, novels, and short stories.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Active participation in the course; two critical essays (5-7 pages) and a third (also 5-7 pages) that may be creative or a revision of a previous assignment (see below); and an in-class presentation.

Class Presentations: Throughout the semester, I will ask you to prepare short class presentations of no more than 10 minutes (NB: you will be timed and stopped if you go over the limit) based on close readings of particular passages of the texts we read. Presentations may be done individually or in pairs. You will receive more information on this method as the semester develops.

Critical Essays: Two of the three essays required for this class should be critical explorations of texts and/or topics covered in class. These should be based on close analyses of specific passages and may include the secondary recommended material indicated in the syllabus. These essays should be polished—revised and edited carefully—and argumentative in nature. Possible paper topics will be circulated well before your deadlines. Another essay, which may be submitted as your second or third written assignment, can be a creative response to one of our texts (e.g. a parody, an imitation) or a creative essay, short story, or travelogue inspired by your time in Venice but connected to the major themes of the class. Specific instructions will be circulated in class. Alternatively, you can substantially revise one of your first two essays (if the last, graded version warrants it) and submit it as your third essay.

Academic Honesty: Please be aware that plagiarism, the act of using other people's words and ideas as if they were your own, is a serious offense that can lead to expulsion from the course. If you quote from sources, if your ideas are indebted to them, or if you closely imitate the work of others, you MUST acknowledge them in your footnotes or endnotes. If you use phrases taken from sources, no matter how short in length, you must present these under quotations and provide the appropriate bibliographical information. If you are in doubt about the rules or how they apply to a particular case, please consult Nick or Professor Carpio.

Grading Breakdown: Class participation (25%), three papers (50%), in-class presentation (25%).

COURSE READINGS

Required Books:

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James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956) Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011) Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926) ---, A Moveable Feast (1958) ---, The Garden of Eden (1986) Henry James, The Aspern Papers (1888)

Course Pack (also on Canvas): James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son (1955), Part III (“Encounter on the Seine: Blacks Meets Brown,” “A Question of Identity,” “Equal in Paris,” “Stranger in the Village”) Joseph Brodsky, Watermark: An Essay on Venice (1989), selections Samuel Delany, “Cage of Brass” (2003) T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Expatriate Stories, selections Ernest Hemingway, “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot” (1925) ---, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (1933) Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940), selections ---, I Wonder as I Wander (1956), selections Henry James, Italian Hours (1909), selections Mary McCarthy, Venice Observed (1956), selections Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (1914), selections ---, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), selections Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (1869), selections Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever” (1934) Richard Wright, Pagan Spain (1957), selections

Additional Reading (see Canvas): Malcolm Bradbury, The Expatriate Tradition in American Literature (1982) Nancy L. Green, “Expatriation, Expatriates, and Expats: The American Transformation of a Concept,” American Historical Review, vol. 114, no. 2, 2009, pp. 307-328. Caren Irr, “Toward the World Novel: Genre Shifts in Twenty-First-Century Expatriate Fiction,” American Literary History, vol. 23, no. 3, 2011, pp. 660–679. Ewa Barbara Luczak, How their Living Outside America Affected Five African American Authors: Toward a Theory of Expatriate Literature (2010), selections Harold T. McCarthy, “Richard Wright: The Expatriate as Native Son,” American Literature, vol. 44, no. 1, 1972, pp. 97-117. Donald Pizer, American Expatriate Writing and the Paris Moment: Modernism and Place (1996), selections

COURSE SCHEDULE (please note: the schedule may be revised during the term)

Week 1. Innocents Abroad: The Gilded Age and 20th-Century Reflections

Monday Lecture Henry James, Italian Hours (1909), selections Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869), selections Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever” (1934) Mary McCarthy, Venice Observed (1956), selections

Wednesday Lecture James, The Aspern Papers (1888) Joseph Brodsky, Watermark: An Essay on Venice (1989), selections

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Samuel Delany, “Cage of Brass” (2003)

Recommended Reading Malcolm Bradbury, The Expatriate Tradition in American Literature, BAAS Pamphlets in American Studies, No. 9, British Association for American Studies, 1982.

1-page Response Paper due Thursday, June 29th by noon (via Canvas)

Week 2. Modernism and Expatriation

Monday Lecture Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons, (1914) selections ---, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), selections Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot”

Wednesday Lecture T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922)

Recommended Reading Green, Nancy L. “Expatriation, Expatriates, and Expats: The American Transformation of a Concept,” American Historical Review, vol. 114, no. 2, 2009, pp. 307-328.

Essay No. 1 due Thursday, July 6th by midnight (via Canvas)

Week 3. The Lost Generation

Monday Lecture Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926) ---, A Moveable Feast (1958)

Wednesday Lecture Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden (1986) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Expatriate Stories, selections

Recommended Reading Donald Pizer, American Expatriate Writing and the Paris Moment: Modernism and Place, Louisiana UP, 1996, selections.

Week 4. Race and Expatriation: Langston Hughes, Richard Wright

Monday Lecture Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940), selections [link]

Wednesday Lecture Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander (1956), selections Richard Wright, Pagan Spain (1957), selections

Recommended Reading Harold T. McCarthy, “Richard Wright: The Expatriate as Native Son,” American Literature, vol. 44, no. 1, 1972, pp. 97-117.

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Ewa Barbara Luczak, How their Living outside America Affected Five African American Authors: Toward a Theory of Expatriate Literature, Edwin Mellen Press, 2010, selections.

Essay No. 2 due on Thursday, July 20th by midnight (via Canvas)

Week 5. James Baldwin in Europe

Monday Lecture James Baldwin, Notes from a Native Son (1955), Part III

Wednesday Lecture James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956)

Week 6. Expatriation in the 21st Century

Monday Lecture Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011)

Additional Reading Caren Irr, “Toward the World Novel: Genre Shifts in Twenty-First-Century Expatriate Fiction,” American Literary History, vol. 23, no. 3, 2011, pp. 660–679.

Essay No. 3 due on Thursday, August 3rd at midnight (via Canvas)

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