Summer 2006
ENG 5830 Readings in American Literature
Curtis
This course will be a survey of American literature from
17th-century British colonials to 1900. The aim of the course is to
familiarize you with as many writers, concepts, critics, and trends
in literary history as possible in a 10-week summer course.
Students will keep an extensive reading log in preparation for a
3-hour final exam.
ENG 6230 Folks Aesthetics and the Harlem Renaissance
Curtis
This course will be an exploration of black folk culture as
explored, expressed, and theorized in the works of the 'New
Negro Renaissance' of the 1920s and '30s.
We'll engage several of the debates surrounding artistic
production during this period: what are 'folk'
texts? Why and how were they valued, aesthetically, sociologically,
and politically? What are the relationships between black art with
a folk aesthetic and the sources from which they were drawn? What
are the sources for 'truly' black folk texts --
Africa? the post-slavery American South? the post-reconstruction
urban centers? white ethnographers? How did writers negotiate the
competing demands of folk and modernist art? Who were the audiences
for folk literature, and how did these writers negotiate the
competing demands of audience and material? We'll focus on
writers particularly interested in developing a black folk
aesthetic (or at least aestheticizing black folk experience): Zora
Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, and Claude McKay.
In preparation for the beginning of the course (i.e., during May!)
you need to read W.E.B. DuBois'
The Souls of Black Folk and Jean Toomer's
Cane, books that sparked and then fueled discussions about
the relationships between folk traditions and black art.
ENW 3560/6460 Creative Nonfiction: The Fourth Genre
Smith
In English 6470.40, we will explore the 'fourth
genre,' creative nonfiction. Special attention will be
given to the memoir, literary journalism, and cultural critique,
and workshop participants will have chances to read and write
examples of each subgenre. Meetings the weeks of 6/7 and 6/14 will
take place on WebCT. Please contact Dr. Smith at
smithbk@mail.belmont.edu for further information.
Texts:
Pollan, The Botany of Desire
Root, The Fourth Genre (3/e)
Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers
Walls, The Glass Castle: A Memoir
