Description of Session and Abbreviated Outline

French Ministry of Education Workshop

Professor Bryant Mangum

Web Page: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~bmangum/

(A website containing materials for this session is available at the following web address: http://www.people.vcu.edu/frenchministry.html)

Links to Selected Sites: http://www.bryant.mangum.com/bm-urls.htm

I. Description of Session: "American Literature from 1865-Present: Deconstructing the Survey": One approach to teaching the survey course in the post-modern era is to move from end to beginning--from contemporary to pre-modern. This session will examine advantages and disadvantages of beginning at the end of the American literature survey course and working backward through modernism to realism, constructing and deconstructing along the way central concepts that traditionally provide structure, or the illusion of structure, in chronologically arranged anthologies and historical surveys of American literature.

II. Tentative Outline of Session (subject to change)

A. Syllabus, Order:

B. Goals from Syllabus:

1. A sense of the dominant literary movements of the period in question

2. A nodding acquaintance with major critical approaches

3. An understanding of recurring themes in the literature of the time period.

4. A strong sense that literature is relevant to their personal experience.

C. Reasons for Beginning at the End of Chronological Survey

1. The period has no name

2. The dominant critical methodology is at the very least eclectic or at another extreme Reader Response

3. The works rarely present conclusions or overt judgments

4. Rarely is there assumed to be a "center" or a core of shared knowledge or belief that a writer requires of the reader

5. A typical technique of contemporary writers is to disorient the reader--one can infer a general attitude that it moves human experience to the margins, finally moving the margins to the center

D. Illustrations

1. Rich's "Living in Sin": Two Versions

2. Woolf's "The Liar": An example of story in which the answers reside in the head of the reader ("solipsism" as point of story)

E. Some Effects of Contemporary Works on Students:

1. craving for answers

2. craving for meaning

3. need for escape

4. denial that this is the world they live in--stories are too depressing

F. Transition to Modern: the dilemmas of transition into modern period using "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Red Wheelbarrow"

G. Transition to Realism: Ending with the "real"

H. Conclusions