UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Modernist Pedagogy: Educational Experiments in Immigrant Fiction; or Making Jewish Immigrants American in the Progressive Era Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jp7p0jq Author Coulter, Jane Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Modernist Pedagogy: Educational Experiments in Immigrant Fiction; or Making Jewish Immigrants American in the Progressive Era A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Jane Elisabeth Coulter Committee in charge: Professor Michael Davidson, Co-chair Professor Nicole Tonkovich, Co-chair Professor Amelia Glaser Professor Rebecca Plant Professor Meg Wesling 2017 Copyright Jane Elisabeth Coulter, 2017 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Jane Elisabeth Coulter is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Co-chair _______________________________________________________ Co-chair University of California, San Diego 2017 iii DEDICATION To my family, for always encouraging me to pursue my goals, even when you wished they weren’t across the country. This book marks the continuation of “The U.S.A. Quill.” To Namir, for cheering and sustaining me. I’m lucky to have known you for 83% of this academic journey and look forward to many more years of analyzing texts together, from the academic to The Americans and Westworld. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………...…… iii Dedication……………………………………………………………………...…... iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………...……. v Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………...…... vii Vita……………………………………………………………………………...….. ix Abstract of the Dissertation……………………………………………………….... x CHAPTER ONE Introduction……………………………………………………… 1 Modernist Pedagogy……………………………...……………………….... 7 The Immigrant Bildungsroman……………...………………………....…... 9 The Individual & Self-Construction in the Modernist Novel…………...…. 12 Generational Modernism……………...………………………………...…. 14 Americanization, Education, & Jewish Immigrant Exclusion in the Progressive Era…………………………………………………….... 17 The Modern Era Meets the Modern Jewish Revolution…………………… 28 Ethnic Modernism: Scholarship and Modernist Pedagogy’s Contributions. 31 CHAPTER TWO “Was The College Only a Factory . ?” Negotiation & Critique of Progressive Education in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers………….... 42 Part I. Learning “Dead Stuff” & Questioning the “Bosses of Education”… 48 Immigrant Experience & Pedagogical Authority……………...…... 48 Immigrant Descent & Patriarchal Authority……………………..... 65 Part II. Remaking Modernism…………………………………………....... 75 Polyglot Tapestry & Jewish Textuality………………………...….. 75 Jewish Pioneers: Rewriting American Identity & Zionist Potential in Bread Givers……………...………………………………...…... 89 The Relevance of Revisiting Generational Modernism in the Progressive Era……………...………………………………...…... 98 CHAPTER THREE “Unwitting Guides” for “a True Yiddish Child:” Urban Immigrant Education from the Metropolitan Museum to the Heder in Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep (1934) ……………...……………………………………….. 103 Generational Modernism: Form and Language in Call It Sleep………..... 110 Performing Identity in the Museum…………………………………...…. 114 Assimilation & Traditional Jewish Pedagogy……………...………...…... 133 v Heder & Cultural Amnesia……………...……………………………...… 145 Public Performance of Jewish Identity: Modernist Act of Self-Making..... 149 CHAPTER FOUR “The Generation that Knows Not Joseph”: Educational Experiments in Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans……………...…….... 158 Misplaced in a Generation: Jewish Expression, Artistic Inheritance, & Genre Innovation……………...……………………………………...... 169 Educational Experiments: Change Through Repetition………………...... 185 Formal Experiments & Deferral in the Singular Narrative……………..... 195 Always Beginning: Enacting a Modernist Pedagogy…………………...... 202 CONCLUSION Experience & Education Through Modernist Pedagogy….…..... 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………...……………………………………………….... 215 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am so grateful to have worked with two wonderful co-chairs who took me on as an advisee at the end of their careers at UCSD. They taught me so much about writing and served as models of the compassionate and challenging educator I strive to be. Michael Davidson’s graduate seminar on Modernism, Citizenship, and Immigration introduced me to the texts that become the foundation for my dissertation; his feedback consistently encouraged me to continue thinking. Nicole Tonkovich taught me superbly useful methods for building sustainable writing practices and always offered generous feedback on my work, even as much of it took place outside the nineteenth century. Her pedagogical approach to looking at Native boarding school narratives as captivity narratives was enthralling and inspiring, even as my work considered a different population of students and teachers. My committee members served as patient, knowledgeable, and generous guides. Amelia Glaser encouraged me think globally about my interest in immigrant education and offered fascinating suggestions for further reading, a number of which made it into this dissertation. For the texts that did not, some future project might flourish from the impressionistic connections between Stein and Nabokov, as well as the socialist realist novel and the American modernist Bildungsroman, that came out of our conversations; she was especially generous with her time, even during the summer. Meg Wesling, besides recommending many interesting directions for considering education in American literature for my qualifying exam lists, provided a wonderful model for teaching the connections between education and U.S. empire, and her use of visual texts to depict pedagogical processes in both her American literature class and her vii first book were inspiring. I was grateful to TA for her American literature survey class and see how she taught literary-historical context to undergraduates. Rebecca Plant offered many historical reference points for the period that provided necessary backdrop for thinking about pragmatism, progressivism, and social reform—her recommendations to read more about Jane Addams in particular resulted in observations that could have spurred chapters beyond this dissertation; here, they’re limited to my conclusion. The Hull House and the Hull House Labor Museum clearly have much larger roles to play in the study of American literature. Two other mentors at UCSD, while not involved directly with my dissertation, played an enormous role in my professional development at UCSD, and I am grateful to continue working with them: Holly Bauer and Karen Gocsik. Their shared interest in pedagogical practices that consider students’ individual needs inspired my interest in thinking about pedagogy as a reference point for modernism. They have served as dedicated mentors throughout my academic career in the Warren College Writing Program as well as the Analytical Writing Program. viii VITA 2007 Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science Boston University 2011 – 2015 Teaching Assistant, Warren College Writing Program University of California, San Diego 2013 – 2015 Senior Teaching Assistant, Warren College Writing Program University of California, San Diego 2014 Master of Arts University of California, San Diego 2016 Research Assistant, Department of Literature University of California, San Diego 2016 Teaching Assistant, Department of Literature University of California, San Diego 2015 – 2017 Coordinator, Embedded Mentor Program, Analytical Writing Program University of California, San Diego 2017 PhD in Literature University of California, San Diego ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Modernist Pedagogy: Educational Experiments in Immigrant Fiction; or Making Jewish Immigrants American in the Progressive Era by Jane Elisabeth Coulter Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California, San Diego, 2017 Professor Michael Davidson, Co-chair Professor Nicole Tonkovich, Co-chair By analyzing scenes of instruction and the instructive literary techniques of Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep, and Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, I introduce a new connection between ethnic modernism and immigrant education in the Progressive era. I assert this connection by establishing what I call modernist pedagogy—the instructional component these novels share at the level of narrative, style, and reading practice. Thematically and formally, these three novels educate scholars and lay readers about immigrant experiences, and my analysis of education in these novels crosses public (Metropolitan museum, university, city streets, x immigrant night school) and private (Hebrew school or heder, governesses in the family home) spheres. I demonstrate how Jewish immigrant modernist Bildungsromanen— constructed through formal experiments with English, Yiddish, and Hebrew as well as thematic experiments with immigrant education—enrich our understanding of assimilative discursive formations that shaped education and reform in the Progressive era. In addition to examining the pedagogical themes and practices these novels engage, I consider