DOCSLIB.ORG

Sentimental Appropriations

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sentimental Appropriations View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository SENTIMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS: CONTEMPORARY SYMPATHY IN THE NOVELS OF GRACE LUMPKIN, JOSEPHINE JOHNSON, JOHN STEINBECK, MARGARET WALKER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, AND TONI MORRISON Jennifer A. Williamson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Linda Wagner-Martin William L. Andrews Philip Gura Fred Hobson Wahneema Lubiano © 2011 Jennifer A. Williamson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER A. WILLIAMSON: Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy in the Novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison (Under the direction of Linda Wagner-Martin) This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism’s influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling— particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering—remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age. Contemporary authors self-consciously struggle with sentimentalism’s gender, class, and race ideals; however, sentimentalism’s dual ability to promote these ideals and extend identification across them makes it an attractive and effective mode for political and social influence. The authors in this study draw upon common sentimental themes such as vulnerable womanhood, motherhood and family, caregiving and domesticity, death and the fear of separation, and Christian salvation to establish sympathy for “Othered” members of society. iii Sentimental literature not only helped mark private and public spaces, but it also redefined the family as more than just a biological or economic unit—it bound the family in terms of affection and love. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, contemporary authors expand the definitions of family and kinship in order to develop sympathy for those who have been cast as outsiders and “Others.” This study examines how contemporary authors modify the sentimental mode through narrative appropriation—adopting the perspectives and voices of “Others” and figuring them as legitimate objects of reader sympathy. Many current sentimental works appropriate the subjectivity of the “Other” in a form of colonial or postcolonial sympathy that assumes or critiques a universal western perspective that believes its power of sympathy to be so strong that it can effectively inhabit the “Others” it seeks to help and improve. iv For my mother v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my committee, without whom this project would not have been possible. I am grateful to Phil Gura for introducing me to sentimentalism and encouraging my pursuit of expanding the scholarly analysis of this subject. I would like to thank Fred Hobson for introducing me to the writings of the Lumpkin family, for many inspiring office chats, and for helping me frame relationships between class and race. I deeply grateful to Wahneema Lubiano for her incredible mentorship and support, for offering countless resources to enrich this project, and for asking questions that helped me reframe my analysis in ever more productive ways. Thank you to Bill Andrews, who encouraged me in my study of slave narratives, who shared his knowledge and helped me, in turn, to see myself as an authority with something to say, and who was so generous with his time and support. I am forever indebted to my director, Linda Wagner- Martin, whose mentorship, whose constant encouragement mixed with gently supportive reminders of her high expectations, and whose tireless efforts on my behalf helped me to develop as a scholar, writer, and person. I am very grateful for the support that this project has received along the way from the Rebekah F. Kirby English Literature Fellowship, the Thomas F. Ferdinand Summer Research Fellowship, the Deborah Warren Shelton Graduate Travel Award, the Center for the Study of the American South Graduate Summer Research Grant, the Northeast Modern Language Association Summer Fellowship, and the Graduate Student Opportunity Fund. I am also grateful to the editors of Modern Language Studies for publishing an early version of Chapter Four. vi Thank you to my Americanists Writing Group, who kept me sane and connected to the world during the arduous, closeted process of writing the dissertation. Your cheerful humor, your willingness to talk about the important things in life—whether it had to do with our dissertations or not—and your impressive, inspiring writing gave me encouragement when I needed it and helped me believe that I could finish what I had started. To Harry Thomas, Angie Calcaterra, Kelly Bezio, Ashley Reed, and Ben Bolling—I love you, I thank you, and I will miss our meetings and the joy they brought to my weeks. Thank you to Harry Thomas, my friend, confidante, officemate, co-teacher, co- conspirator, scholarly sounding board, editor, TV critic, comics pusher, comforter and supporter, hilarious sidekick, voice of reason, advice giver—I am forever grateful to the powers that brought us together my first week of graduate school. You are the reason I’ve survived this crazy process with my whole self intact. I look forward to more adventures with you. There are so many wonderful friends, both in graduate school and in other walks of life, to whom I am forever grateful, including Kasey Cain, Megan Buyrn, Christine Carpino, Joe Cawley, Jon Cochran, Robert Lipscomb, Caroline Adelman, Bill Velto, Meredith Farmer, Sarah Marsh, Kelly Ross, Cindy Current, Jen McDaneld, Lynn Badia, Jess Martell, Zack Vernon, Jennifer Larson, Leslie Davison, Marc Cohen, Meredith Malburne-Wade, Teresa Perez, Cheryl and Albert Meyer, and Billie Akman. Thank you to my wonderful family, who has been excited for me along each step of this journey. I am grateful to my father, who is my trusted sounding board and big picture guy, my constant and reliable source of support, who has always encouraged me and helped me believe in myself. I send my love and deepest thanks to my Granddad Williamson and Grandma Zion for their unflagging support. Thank you to my brothers and sisters-in-law as well as my nieces and vii nephews for your love as well as playtime “work breaks”—John and Brenden, Eric and Becky, and Owen, Avery, Eleanor, Connor, Ali, and Jack. Thank you to Aunt Martha for always being in my corner. Thank you to Uncle Mark and Aunt Julie for your constant support and for offering fun distractions when I needed a break. Thank you to Uncle Paul and Aunt Cathy, Uncle Craig, and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Chuck for always cheering me on. Finally, I would like to thank my mother, who passed away before she could see me complete this project or receive my doctorate. My mother, who showed profound sympathy and reached out to countless others during her lifetime, was in many ways the inspiration for this scholarly project. She deeply shaped the person I am today, and she enthusiastically supported my decision to obtain a PhD. Her daily encouragement was an important part of my life, and I know that she would be thrilled that I have completed this goal. I thank her for not only teaching me that I can achieve anything if I work for it, but also for providing me love, encouragement, and opportunities that would allow me to eventually reach those dreams. Thank you, Mom. I love and miss you. viii PREFACE Critics and scholars of American literature have long held that the twentieth- and twenty- first centuries are supposedly “anti-sentimental.” Under the rising influences of what may appear to be more masculine modes of naturalism, realism, and modernism, contemporary authors and audiences are believed to reject the sentimental as feminized, old-fashioned, and unrealistic. However, this project reveals that the sentimental mode is alive and well in the modern era, as authors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries continue the use of familiar nineteenth-century sentimental forms and tropes that reveal an ongoing engagement with sentimental expression that draws upon its ability to instruct and influence readers through emotional identification. In these texts sentimentalism appears as a key mode of political and social expression. As in the nineteenth-century sentimental novel, contemporary texts redefine the boundaries of the human family, emphasizing emotional relationships that are equated to kinship bonds in order to reorganize social boundaries and instruct readers to identify and sympathize with individuals generally configured as social “Others.”1 As the popularity of romanticized stories of lovers from opposing social groups, superhero epics whose origins are tragic, and series about orphans who create families among wizards and other magical beings reveal, the narrative appeals of emotional connection and kinship ties have never faded for contemporary audiences. As twentieth-century critiques of 1 Edward Said, in Orientalism (1978), theorized that Western beliefs about the Orient were constructed entirely from Western perspectives and assumptions, leading to a dominant worldview based on “The West” and “The Other.” Said’s ideas have since influenced literary, social, gender, and race theories which posit that white privilege and heteronormative society also follows this pattern, creating “Others” out of individuals who are not members of the dominant, hegemonic group.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Centro Cultural De La Raza Archives CEMA 12
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3j49q99g No online items Centro Cultural de la Raza Archives CEMA 12 Finding aid prepared by Project director Sal Güereña, principle processor Michelle Wilder, assistant processors Susana Castillo and Alexander Hauschild June, 2006. Collection was processed with support from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). Updated 2011 by Callie Bowdish and Clarence M. Chan UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California, 93106-9010 Phone: (805) 893-3062 Email: [email protected]; URL: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/special-collections © 2006 Centro Cultural de la Raza CEMA 12 1 Archives CEMA 12 Title: Centro Cultural de la Raza Archives Identifier/Call Number: CEMA 12 Contributing Institution: UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections Language of Material: English Physical Description: 83.0 linear feet Date (inclusive): 1970-1999 Abstract: Slides and other materials relating to the San Diego artists' collective, co-founded in 1970 by Chicano poet Alurista and artist Victor Ochoa. Known as a center of indigenismo (indigenism) during the Aztlán phase of Chicano art in the early 1970s. (CEMA 12). Physical location: All processed material is located in Del Norte and any uncataloged material (silk screens) is stored in map drawers in CEMA. General Physical Description note: (153 document boxes and 5 oversize boxes). creator: Centro Cultural de la Raza (San Diego, Calif.). Access Restrictions None. Publication Rights Copyright resides with donor. Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All Requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections.
    [Show full text]
  • TOOLBOX of FAITH a Tapestry of Faith Program for Children Grades
    TOOLBOX OF FAITH A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children Grades 4-5 BY KATE TWEEDIE COVEY © Copyright 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association. This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at www.uua.org/re/tapestry . 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHORS ....................................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................................... 3 THE PROGRAM ................................................................................................................................... 4 SESSION 1: FAITH (TOOLBOX AND RULER) .................................................................................. 15 SESSION 2: QUESTIONING (MAGNIFYING GLASS) ....................................................................... 27 SESSION 3: INTEGRITY (COMPASS) ............................................................................................... 40 SESSION 4: FLEXIBILITY (DUCT TAPE) .......................................................................................... 54 SESSION 5: REFLECTION (MIRROR) .............................................................................................. 68 SESSION 6: EXPRESSION (PAINTBRUSH) ..................................................................................... 79 SESSION 7: DEMOCRATIC PROCESS (CHALK) ............................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume One: the Authors Philip A
    200 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Dictionary of Midwestern Literature Volume One: The Authors Philip A. Greasley, general editor (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. Pp. x, 666. Illustrations,suggestions for further reading, appendix, index. $59.95.) This volume presents, in alphabetical (that is, persons with their origins and/ order, approximately four hundred en- or most lasting affiliationswith the area) tries on individual authors. Each entry and “Midwesternliterature.” This ambi- begins with name, birth and death dates, guity has implications for the usefulness and major pseudonyms, and continues of the volume. Who is represented here, with sections on biography, literary sig- and on what basis? nificance, identification of major works, Anderson’s essay, for instance, con- and suggestions for further secondary cludes with the intriguing note that four reading. The entries are signed and in- of the eight American winners of the clude the institutional affiliations of some Nobel Prize in literature are midwest- one hundred contributors,all members erners: Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Heming- of the Society for the Study of Midwest- way, Saul Bellow, and Toni Morrison. By ern Literature,the project’s sponsor. This geographicaland cultural affiliation and volume is the first of a proposed three by attitude these four belong in this vol- for the Dictionary of Midwestern Litera- ume. The situation is less clear for other ture. Volume two, in encyclopedia-entry figures who also appear: Black Elk, born format, will cover important historical in Wyoming, raised in the northern and research sites, movements, themes, plains, and oblivious to the white man’s and genres; volume three will be a dis- cultural construct of “region”;Joyce Carol cursive, chapter-organized, literary his- Oates, whose connections to the region tory of the Midwest.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on Sentiment: Essays in Honor of George Starr, Edited by Alessa Johns. Newark: Delaware UP, 2016. Pp. Vii + 215. $75
    Reflections on Sentiment: Essays in Honor of George Starr, edited by Alessa Johns. Newark: Delaware UP, 2016. Pp. vii + 215. $75. ISBN: 978-1611495881. This collection of essays dedicated to George Starr concentrates on Professor Starr’s interest in the novel and the ways in which sentimentality impacted fiction during the eighteenth century. More particularly the essays spin off from an essay by Professor Starr, “Only a Boy,” published in Genre in 1977. That essay argued that the male protagonist of sentimental novels could not satisfy the requirement of the hero of the Bildungsroman, because he does not, indeed cannot, grow in any significant way. Professor Starr begins his discussion with Defoe’s Colonel Jack. He argues that Jack never grows out of regarding himself as a child and hence essentially innocent. Although the title of Professor Starr’s essay is based upon a moment in Huckleberry Finn, when the narrator escapes a dangerous situation by pleading his status as a child and hence not guilty of any act that might have been interpreted as evil, Colonel Jack makes similar pleas by way of excusing his actions. Professor Starr argues that Jack resembles the protagonist of the sentimental novel in this continuing naiveté, his blundering attempts at marriage, and his lack of any real growth. This pattern certainly plays its way into Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and Henry Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling. As for Frances Burney’s Evelina, the female protagonist it shows to possess the characteristics of the hero of sentiment without problems, since some child-like qualities and complete sexual innocence were the ideals of the heroines of the sentimental novel.
    [Show full text]
  • 20Thcent.Pdf (1.887Mb)
    ~... TWENTIETH -I. CENTURY THE ODYSSEY SUHVEYS OF AMERICAN WRITING General Editor: C. Hugh lIolman, University of North Carolina AMERICAN COLONIAL AND FEDEHALIST AMERICAN WHrnNG (1607-183°) Edited by George F. Horner and Robert A. Bain University of No'rth Carolina WRITING THE ROMANTIC MOVEME:NT IN AMEl\ICAN WmUNG (l830 ­ 186S) Edited by Richard Harter Fogle Tul.ane University ~ 00 THE REALfSTIC MOVI~MENT IN AMEHlCAN WRITING (l865- 19 ) (' Edited by Bruce H. McElderry, Jr. University of S(Httlwrn Califo11lia TWENTIKrIl CI.;NTUl\Y AM~:RICAN WnrnNG (lg00-lg6o's) By WILLIAM T. STAFFORD Edited by William T. Stalford PURDUE UNIVERSITY Purdue University THE ODYSSEY PRESS . INC NEW YORK --l~ CONTENTS Introduction New Directions Chapter One. The New Poetry 9 Edwin Arli/lgtor~ Robinson 14 From Letter to Harry de Forest Smith 15 From Letter to L. N. Chase 17 Credo 18 Luke Havergal 19 Zola 20 Boston 20 Aaron St,uk 20 Richard Cory 21 Miniver Cheevy 21 Cassandra 22 Eros Turannos 24 Flmnmonde 25 The Man Against the Sky 28 Bewick Finzer 35 The Rat 36 New England 36 From Tristram. 37 Robert Frost 42 An Introduction to [Edwin Arlington Robinson's] King Jasper 43 Mowing 49 The Tuft uf Flowers 49 x;ii xiv / Contents Contents / xv Mending Wall 5U Edgar Lee Masters 143 The Mountain 52 From Spoon River Allthology Home Burial 55 The Hill 144 After Apple.Picking 58 Cassitls Hueffer 145 The Wood-Pile 59 Knowlt Hoheimer 145 Birches (jo Lydia Puckett 145 "Out,Out-" 62 Margaret Fuller Sh1Ck 146 Fire and Ice 62 Editor Whedon 146 Stopping by Woods 011 a Snowy Evening 63 Daisy Fraser 147 West-Running Brook 6.'3 Mrs.
    [Show full text]
  • 100 Best Last Lines from Novels
    100 Best Last Lines from Novels 1. …you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. –Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable 22. YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO ARt—RETURN TO LIFE –William H. Gass, (1953; trans. Samuel Beckett) Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife (1968) 2. Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? –Ralph Ellison, 23. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your Invisible Man (1952) rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel. –Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900) 3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) 24. Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is. –Russell Banks, Continental Drift (1985) 4. …I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the 25. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with children, only found another orphan. –Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could 26. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.
    [Show full text]
  • 04-01-1921.Pdf
    CA s s CITY CHR ONICL, E Vol. 16, No. 46., CASS CITY, MICH., FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1921 10 PAGES I I,~ , ,q Beach. This camp site is furnished for many milestones of contented, with electric lights, city water, nice b~issnfdU:.travelisthewish°fah°st°f TWO 80HOOL8 - driveway encircling the park and is The Garden Plot BILL P[}ST[R CU, only five hours trip from Detroit on gravel roads. A rustic casino with DIVIDE HONOlt] fine dancing pavilion on the ~second AUCTION ~ CALENDAI~. i; IN;O POR TED / floor, huge cement stoves under roof are erected, boating facilities are pro~ Wm. Parrish has sold his farm 21~ RUBA MARSHALL WINS ORA- vided and a free bath house will be at miles west of Cuss City and will have S. CHAMPION ADMITS PAR.T= TORICAL CONTEST AT the disposal of the tourists. County an auction sale on Wednesday, April NERS AND ENLARGES CROSWELL. League baseball games will be played 6. Full particulars are printed on on the ball grounds adjoining and the page 9. BUSINESS. rocky rip rap of the north pier fur- Dr. J. T. Redwine has sold ~is resi- nishe,~ a wonderful haven for black dence property and wilt sell his CroswelI School Representative Suc- Company Will Extend Working Field bass. household goods at auction on Satur- cessful in Declamatory Contest day, April 9. The list of articles i,s to A|ma, St. Louis, Mr. Pleasant, Friday Evening. )tinted on page 8. Ithaca and Other Points.' Alex McPhait wiil hold an auction sale Of live stock and implements on Miss Ruba Marshall, the represen- 12 STATESPt88[D the McPhail farm lb~ miles'north of When Gee.
    [Show full text]
  • READING JOHN STEINBECK ^ Jboctor of $Iitldfi
    DECONSTRUCTING AMERICA: READING JOHN STEINBECK ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF ^ JBoctor of $IitlDfi;opI)p IN ENGLISH \ BY MANISH SINGH UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF DR. MADIHUR REHMAN DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 2013 Abstract The first chapter of the thesis, "The Path to Doom: America from Idea to Reality;'" takes the journey of America from its conception as an idea to its reality. The country that came into existence as a colony of Great Britain and became a refuge of the exploited and the persecuted on one hand and of the outlaws on other hand, soon transformed into a giant machine of exploitation, persecution and lawlessness, it is surprising to see how the noble ideas of equality, liberty and democracy and pursuit of happiness degenerated into callous profiteering. Individuals insensitive to the needs and happiness of others and arrogance based on a sense of racial superiority even before they take root in the virgin soil of the Newfoundland. The effects cf this degenerate ideology are felt not only by the Non-White races within America and the less privileged countries of the third world, but even by the Whites within America. The concepts of equality, freedom, democracy and pursuit of happiness were manufactured and have been exploited by the American ruling class.The first one to experience the crawling effects of the Great American Dream were original inhabitants of America, the Red Indians and later Blacks who were uprooted from their home and hearth and taken to America as slaves.
    [Show full text]
  • Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy In
    SENTIMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS: CONTEMPORARY SYMPATHY IN THE NOVELS OF GRACE LUMPKIN, JOSEPHINE JOHNSON, JOHN STEINBECK, MARGARET WALKER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, AND TONI MORRISON Jennifer A. Williamson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Linda Wagner-Martin William L. Andrews Philip Gura Fred Hobson Wahneema Lubiano © 2011 Jennifer A. Williamson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER A. WILLIAMSON: Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy in the Novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison (Under the direction of Linda Wagner-Martin) This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism’s influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling— particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering—remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age. Contemporary authors self-consciously struggle with sentimentalism’s gender, class, and race ideals; however, sentimentalism’s dual ability to promote these ideals and extend identification across them makes it an attractive and effective mode for political and social influence.
    [Show full text]
  • English, American Nobel Prize Winners in Literature. INSTITUTION Kansas Univ., Lawrence
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 058 196 TE 002 709 AUTHOR Phillips, James A. TITLE Modular Curriculum: English, American Nobel Prize Winners in Literature. INSTITUTION Kansas Univ., Lawrence. Extramural Independent Study Center. PUB DATE 70 NOTE 54p. AVAILABLE FROMUniversity of Kansas, Extramural Independent Study Center, Coordinator of Secondary Education, Lawrence, Kansas 66044 ($2.00) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *American Literature; *Authors; College Curriculum; Creative Writing; Curriculum Design; *English Curriculum; Guides; Independent Study; *Literary Genres; *Secondary Education; University Extension IDENTIFIERS *Nobel Prize in Literature ABSTRACT This independent study module treats those Americans who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. They include Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Pearl Buck. Selections from the writings of these authors are included. Their works represent many literary genres and also encompass much that man has had to say about his fellow man. (Editor/CK) I. THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS / AT LAWRENCE "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPY RIGHTED MATERIAL BY MICRDFICHE ONLY 1-14$PEEN GRANTED BY/I NAAJ uo IL)Q U.N/i 14rdS4-S. TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U S OFFICE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PER MISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OF HEALTH. U.S. DEPARTMENT EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EOUCATION HAS BEEN REPRO- THIS DOCUMENT MODULAR CURRICULUM: AS RECEIVEDFROM DUCED EXACTLYORGANIZATION ORIG- THE PERSON OR OPIN- ENGLISH INATING IT. POINTSOF VIEW OR NOT NECESSARILY American Nobel Prize Winners IONS STATEO DO OFFICE OF EDU- REPRESENT OFFICIAL OR POLICY.
    [Show full text]
  • Faulkner & Morrison
    William Faulkner and Toni Morrison are generally understood as two of the most important writers of the twentieth century, and, indeed, the work of each is integral to American literature. But why are Morrison and Faulkner so often Faulkner & mentioned in the same breath—he, born in the South, white and wealthy, she, the Morrison daughter of a working-class black family in the Midwest? Perhaps it is because in a country that works hard to live without a racial past, both Morrison’s and Faulkner’s work bring deep articulation to the often unseen, and more commonly, English 95.03 the unspeakable. This class will make some explorations across each author’s work, Prof. Parham looking for where their texts converge and diverge. As well, we will learn how to [email protected] talk and write about the visions, dreams, and nightmares—all represented as daily life—that these authors offer. Workload & Attendance This is a discussion driven class, and its greatest requirement is that you pay close attention—in class as well as while reading. This also means that we might make changes to the syllabus, adjusting according to our progress through the texts. You will complete 5 three page papers, of which I will drop the lowest grade. You may choose to skip paper #5, but you may not skip papers 1-4. For your final grade, you must submit at least four papers, revised if you like, as a portfolio. I do not give paper topics, but we can build one for you during office hours in 10 Johnson Chapel.
    [Show full text]
  • Electronic Green Journal Volume 1, Issue 41, April 2018
    Electronic Green Journal Volume 1, Issue 41, April 2018 Review: Citizen Steinbeck: Giving Voice to the People By Robert McParland Reviewed by Ryder W. Miller New York, NY, USA McParland, Robert. Citizen Steinbeck: Giving Voice to the People. Lanham, MD, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 259 pp. ISBN: 9781442268302, hardback. US$40.00; alkaline paper; also available as an e-book. Citizen Steinbeck: Giving Voice to the People provides a wonderful and fascinating overview of the life and literary achievement of John Steinbeck (1902-1968). English Professor Robert McParland tells a detailed story about Steinbeck’s life which begins in Salinas, California, as well as his struggle to be a successful writer, his days at work and in the war, and his literary success and achievements. As a writer, Steinbeck went beyond being a regionalist to become one of America’s most famous writers; he won a Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. He also had an international perspective having been part of the American military struggles overseas and having done some travel writing and setting some of his stories in other countries. Steinbeck began as a reporter but went on to write some stories with mythological elements as well as having characters that believed in witchcraft and astrology. His novels were set in the land with lush descriptions of the outdoors. Salinas, CA was part of the farming community and Steinbeck wrote of their times and struggles. Steinbeck also wrote about some of the animals in these landscapes and one could argue that he also gave them and the land a voice.
    [Show full text]