Tuesday/ Thursday   1:30-3 
Carney 203
Prof. Christopher P. Wilson
You can email Prof. Wilson by clicking here:wilsonc@bc.edu

The following course texts are required.  (E) signals a text this syllabus also links to, as an etext:

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
• Louisa May Alcott, Behind a Mask (E)
  
• Charles Chesnutt, Conjure Tales and Stories  (E)
  
• William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham
• Stephen Crane, Great Short Works of Stephen Crane
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland and Other Short Stories
• Pauline Hopkins,  Of One Blood

Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual has been put on reserve to help you with your writing; correction marks on your papers will be keyed to this text as well.

It is also highly recommended that you go either to the Reserve Desk in O'Neill and make copies of the short stories which we will be reading together, or download your copies from e-texts on the Web. Beyond that, nearly all of the course reading, and materials relating to class paper assignments, will be on Reserve.

Course Requirements

1. Very Regular Class Attendance and Participation , including two required film viewings
2. An ungraded one or two- page creative-arts submission either (a) two from our the Multi-Media materials on our Blackboard Site , (b) from the Smithsonian On-line "American Memory Project," or (c) submission for an in-class Creative Writing Workshop (To Get to this Assignment, click here )  
3. One Short Paper (4-5 pp.)  
4. One Longer Paper (involving research or work with a critical essay) (5-7 pp.)
5. A Final Closed Book Exam on Lectures, Discussions, and Course Readings at the Regular University-Time. This exam will focus on the syllabus readings, and will involve identifications and mastery of specific details from these texts.

   ---

   Want to see a Timeline of Our Texts and Historical Events
   for this Era?  Click here.
   
   
   I.  Prologue: In the House/ In the Attic

Tues.  2    Opening Day:  Introduction   Discussion of Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"   For background purposes, you can also read the two chapters on Blackboard from Rebecca Edwards' New Spirits:  Americans in the Gilded Age:  the chapters entitled "An Uneasy Peace" and "Reach."The first chapter will be particularly relevant to our discussion of Jacobs; the second to our discussion of Howells.  For a good discussion of the issue of "contracts" as it relates to race and gender, read the background essay by Amy Stanley on our Blackboard Site.

If you'd like to see the full text of Mark Twain's famous lecture on "The Sandwich islands," click here

Thurs. 4    Lecture / Discussion:  Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Tues.  9   Discussion   Jacobs -2-
Thurs. 11  Discussion Jacobs  -3-

Tues. 16   Lecture/Discussion:  W.D. Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham
Thurs. 18  Discussion  Howells  -2-

Tues. 23  Discussion  Howells -3-

  [ Optional Field Trip to the American Victorian Society possible]

II.  The Work of Woman

Thurs. 25   Lecture/ Discussion:   Louisa May Alcott, Behind a Mask   An on-line version from the University of Virginia is available, by clicking here   If you'd rather, you can also xerox a copy from Alternative Alcott, which is on Reserve. But please be sure to have a hard copy for class discussion.

Tues. 30 Discussion  Alcott -2-

If you'd like to see a couple of famous images of "Judith and Holofernes," click here  and here

October

The Camera Eye #1:   Please look at the distributed Photo Gallery, "The Faces of Emancipation," distributed by email and also on our class Blackboard Site.  

Thurs. 2  Discussion:   Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron."  Please also read  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "If I Were a Man" and "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

   You can  see an on-line text of "A White Heron" by clicking here    If you'd rather use a print version, "A White Heron" is on reserve in Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, and in both the Heath and Prentice-Hall Anthologies of American Literature as well. For an extext of Gilman's "Yellow Wall-Paper," click  here   . "If I Were a Man" is   in The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader (R) on on-line by clicking here

III:  Race and Reunion

Tues. 7   Lecture/ Discussion   Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

 

Thurs. 9  Discussion:  Twain -2-

FIRST SHORT PAPER DUE    FRIDAY, OCT. 10 at noon.  

Tues. 14  Discussion:  Twain -3-

The Camera Eye #2:   Film Viewing:  We'll be looking at DW Griffiths's "Birth of a Nation" (Group Showing, Wed. Oct. 15 at 7PM in O'Neill; the film is also on reserve.)  Please also read the Kate Chopin story, "Desiree's Baby," which you can find by clicking here  

Thurs. 17  Lecture/ Discussion:   Charles W. Chesnutt, "The Goopher'd Grapevine" and "Po' Sandy."  Please also read "Sis Becky's Pickanniny" for background.   For a collection of our first two tales, originally appearing in The Conjure Woman, click here

Tues. 21  Discussion: Chesnutt  -2-   The Passing of Grandison"   Note: if your edition doesn't have this story, it is also in O'Neill Library in the Prentice-Hall Anthology of American Literature  (R). And you can find an extext here
Please also read "What is a White Man?" ( By clicking here) and, for background, "The Wife of His Youth"

IV:  Reading the Streets /  Immigrant Scenes

Thurs. 23  Lecture/ Discussion:  Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Tues. 28  Discussion:  Crane  -2-
Thurs. 30  Discussion:  Crane -3-

November

Tues. 4  Lecture/Discussion:   Sui Sin Far, "In the Land of the Free,"  "Mrs. Spring Fragrance"
Thurs. 6  Discussion: Sui Sin Far, "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian"

V.  Voyages Out

Tues. 11  Lecture/ Discussion:   Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland

The Camera Eye #3:   Film Viewing:  "America and Lewis Hine" (Group Showing Tues Nov. 11th at 7PM in O'Neill; also on reserve) Thurs. 13  Discussion: Gilman -2-

Tues. 18   Discussion:  Gilman  -2-
Thurs. 20  Lecture/ Discussion   Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood   

Tues. 25   Discussion:  Hopkins   -2-

Thanksgiving

December

Tues. 2  Discussion:  Hopkins   -3-

Thurs. 4  Last Class Day:  Wrap Up    Exam Review    FINAL LONGER PAPER DUE

---

A Few Tips on Effective Quotation   [Download the PDF]

Some Convenient Links in American Studies

Course Policies:
 
1.    Class attendance is required.  You are allowed three cuts (hereby defined as an "unexcused absence") without penalty.   Absence in excess of this three-cut maximum can lower your grade--and, in extreme cases, be grounds for failing the course altogether.  If there is a good reason why you have had to miss a class, please don't hesitate to tell me.  Bring a doctor's note for medical excuses.

2.      Class participation can account for about 25% of your grade.  Generally,  I try to use your class participation (including your work on panels or  "kick-off" presentations) as a measure of how well you have read and  understood the assignments.  I use a sliding scale for class participation:   the better you do, the larger part of grade will reflect your participation.  I use 4 categories:  "A" (25%), "B" (15%), "C" (10%) and "D" (0%). Class participation will never pull down your overall grade; however, infrequent class participation willmake your overall grade more dependent on the final exam.

The idea here is to encourage strong class participation, but not to penalize unduly those who are silent or feel uncomfortable speaking. If your participation reflects strong reading skills, consideration for others' viewpoints, and frequent contributions to the flow of discussion, your class "average" can be boosted considerably.   For this course,

If your class participation grade is "A":

Your participation grade will be available around mid-term and before the final  (and other times if you ask).

3.      As I say above, please note that the final exam will include identifications from the readings covered over the semester--identifications from some of the more "marginal" moments in the texts covered (that is, not necessarily material mentioned in class or covered by your papers).   The purpose of this emphasis on textual detail is to reward those class members who have read carefully and closely over the semester.

4. Papers are generally on texts not covered on the syllabus per se.  When you submit a paper, it should be neatly word-processed and double-spaced. Please do not use a separate title page; try to keep your font between 12 and 14; and always append a "works cited" page. In addition, you are required to keep a "hard" copy of the paper you hand in. That way, if your paper is lost, you can simply re-submit your hard copy.

5. Papers are due on the assigned dates. Generally, I allow 24 hours leeway (after the class start time) without penalty; after that, you will be penalized about 1/3 grade for every part of 24 hours the paper is late. The idea of this  "leeway" period is that you should never miss a class in order to type a paper; come to class, and turn the paper in later. I'm sorry to say that I cannot accept email submissions without advance permission. Papers are considered "submitted" when they arrive in hard copy. After a week, I must assign an "F" to any paper not turned in. After three weeks, it is assigned a "0".  Any paper not submitted before the final exam is also assigned a "0". 

6. Everyone should feel that office hours are for "hashing out" class discussions, lectures, and the progress of the course  generally.  If you feel confused, bored, unchallenged, or otherwise distressed, please come see me.  If my office hours don't fit  your schedule, just talk to me in class about setting up another  time. Small groups are welcome, and most welcome are discussions about the ideas of the course. I'm also open to conversations on email, but try to avoid this as a substitute for a face-to-face conference, particularly about planning or following up on your papers.  Given the sheer volume of messages and the differences between your schedule and mine, I also can't respond to late-night emails until the next day. And "But I left a message on your voice mail" isn't an excuse for anything, in your social life or mine  (except for class absences you anticipate. In that case, I appreciate the advance notice). 

7.  Boston College values the academic integrity of its faculty and its students.   It should go without saying, simply as a matter of fairness to everyone who participates in this class, that I take such matters quite seriously. All students are required to familiarize themselves with the university guidelines on integrity at the start of the course. To see those guidelines, click here.  And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask me for clarification, even if you are right in the middle of an assignment.  Violations of academic integrity are adjudicated according to the guidelines and the academic integrity committee of your school. If you are found in violation, penalties may include a failing grade as well as possible suspension, probation, or expulsion, depending on the seriousness and circumstances of the violation.

8. This course emphasizes improving your writing. To that end, I use a "correction guide" which will be handed out in class. It goes without saying that I will be willing to work closely with your writing throughout the semester: please take advantage of this.