ENGLISH 285 UP AND DOWN THE LADDER OF SUCCESS
SPRING 2013
American Literature
Lecture Sessions MW 11:15-12:05 at Swearingen Engineering Center 1c01
Map http://www.sc.edu/cgi-bin/uscmap/uscmap.cgi?data=173&type=number
Dr. David S. Shields dshields@mailbox.sc.edu Office: Welsh 207
Please contact by e-mail, not be telephone
Discussion Group Leaders:
Brandon Rushton
Sections 001 & 010
Andrew Valencia
Sections 002 & 003
Matthew Fogarty
Sections 004 & 005
Jordan Markley
Sections 006 & 009
Marie-Claire Churchouse Sections 007 & 008
Prospectus
American culture has an enduring obsession with the quest for personal success. From the Puritan
agonizing over salvation to the American Idol contestant yearning for celebrity, images of aspiration and
stories of failed hopes dominate the nation’s literature. How has success been envisioned? How does one
get it? What is the cost (individually, socially, environmentally) of personal triumph? What is the recipe for
failure? How glorious can success be, and how abject can failure be? What is the pathology of the quest?
English 285 will explore these issues.
Format
English 285 combines lectures with small group discussion. Professor Shields and occasional guest
speakers will perform the syllabus of lectures. Your assigned Discussion Group Leader will superintend
your further inquiry into the issues raised in the course, assign papers, exercises, and quizzes, and will
assess your performance. There will be mid-term and final examinations conducted in the Swearingen
lecture hall. Your Discussion Group Leader will have absolute determination of your grade. Prof. Shields
will not over-ride a Group Leader’s decision or act as a court of appeals. All communications in this
course will be conducted through USC’s Blackboard system. This requires you to have an active e-mail
account. Each Discussion Group Leader will post a supplementary syllabus on 285’s blackboard site
laying out the graded course assignments, other than the mid term and final, for the semester.
Required Texts:
David S. Shields, ed., Up & Down the Ladder of Success (Pearson Custom Publishing)
William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (SKM Books)
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (Vintage/Knopf)
Nathaniel West, Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust (New Directions)
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick (Penguin Classics)
Additional Readings will be linked below to sites on the World Wide Web
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES
January 14
Introduction—The Quest for Success
January 16
Captain John Smith & the American Dream
Captain John Smith, Advertisements for Experienced Planters, Pearson pp 1-45
January 21
Smith on Valor, Class, Rank, Hierarchy
Captain John Smith, Advertisements for Experienced Planters, pp 1-45
January 23
Puritan Heroism & the Imitation of Christ
Cotton Mather, “Nehemias Americanus: The Life of John Winthrop” from Magnalia
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/cotton1.html
January 28
Puritanism & the Worldly Success
Max Weber, “The Spirit of Capitalism” The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism
http://archive.org/stream/protestantethics00webe#page/n9/mode/2up pp. 47-78
January 30
February 4
February 6
February 11
February 13
February 18
February 25
February 27
March 4
March 6
March 18
March 20
March 25
March 27
April 1
April 3
April 8
April 10
April 15
April 17
April 22
April 24
April 29
Benjamin Franklin & The Work of Virtue
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, Part 2, Pearson, 58-74
Franklin & the Institutions of Reputation
“the Junto” & other projects rom Autobiography Part 1,
http://books.google.com/books?id=IBYZAAAAYAAJ, pp. 98-150
The American Artist & the Problem of Success
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Artist of the Beautiful, Pearson Custom, 156-174
Money & Prosperity
Benjamin Franklin, Father Abraham’s Speech, Pearson Custom, 50-57
P. T. Barnum’s “The Art of Money Getting” & the Idea of Risk
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/
Barnum’s Struggles & Triumphs of 40 Years, Chapters 7, 8, 9, & 10
http://books.google.com/books?id=s9YydrgS3UcC
http://www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu/home.html
The Confidence Man
William Thompson & the plausible Crook: 1849 newpapers in Blackboard Documents
Midterm Test
Horatio Alger, Pluck & Luck
Ragged Dick
Horatio Alger & a Hand up the Ladder
Ragged Dick
William Dean Howells on Respectability
The Rise of Silas Lapham
William Dean Howells on Fashionability & Marriage
The Rise of Silas Lapham
Beauty & Power
David S. Shields, “The Rise of the Professional Beauty,” Blackboard
Booker T. Washington Limitation
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, Blackboard
Booker T. Washington Uplift & Improvement
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery, Blackboard
Andrew Carnegie & The Gospel of Wealth
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Carnegie.html
Carnegie’s Autobiography
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17976/17976-h/17976-h.htm, pp. 32-148
The Assassins of Wealth
Alexander Berkman, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, Chapters 1-7
http://books.google.com/books/about/Prison_Memoirs_of_an_Anarchist.html?id=F
C4UAAAAIAAJ
Hollywood Dreams, Hollywood Nightmares
Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locust
California, Resort, & Retirement
Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locust
Translating Values Across Cultures
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Tradition as Obstacle
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Hero Woman, Loser Man
Bobbie Ann Mason, “Shiloh,” Pearson, 102-130
Final Exam