English 553: Junior Seminar
Odd Fellows 222
MW 11-12:15
Spring 2016
Prof. Ben Slote: Odd Fellows 235
Hours: M 4:20-5:20
TTh 9:30-12
and by appt.
House Lights, Please: Audiences in Late 19th- and Early
20th-Century U.S. Writing
On its own the question of how a reading audience matters, both to the formation of literary
meaning and to how individual writers undertake their work, rewards scrutiny. Readerresponse criticism and reception studies attest to this fact. For the writers in our course,
however, the question of audience, including the possibility that audience expectations exert
a kind of pressure on their literary art, may be especially compelling. Frederick Douglass
and Mark Twain began their public careers facing the physical audiences of the lecture hall;
Theodore Dreiser was a failed playwright, Willa Cather a drama critic before each was a
novelist; and all of the writers of the course, very much including the “reclusive” Emily
Dickinson, seem preoccupied in their work with how fraught the literary transaction might
be. We will examine the sorts of audiences their literary texts imply or in some cases might
literally describe, and consider in depth the ways in which each writer’s negotiation of
audience becomes a part of their literary achievement.
Because this is a seminar, it’s my expectation that everyone will come to class having done
the reading with genuine critical energy and readied themselves for discussion. The
importance of class participation in my evaluation of your work reflects this expectation.
Course grade components
Writing:*
Speaking:
Short essay (5-7 pp.)
Two critical reviews (4-5 pp. each)
Final research essay (14-18 pp.)
“Comp” proposal (2-3 pp. and annotated bib.)
15%
25%
25%
10%
In-class report
Class participation*
5%
20%
* My grading criteria for your writing and class participation are described in the back of this
syllabus.
Required texts:
Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by
Himself (1845)
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)
Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest: Poems (1858-1886)
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Those Extraordinary Twins, The Man that Corrupted
Hadleyburg (1894)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
Course Reader—available at the Bookstore
2
Reading schedule (subject to minor improvisations):
1/20
Introduction: thinking of reading and readers
Readers in history and theory
1/25 Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” (1853) (handout)
1/27 Foley, “From Wall Street to Astor Place: Historicizing Melville’s ‘Bartleby” (handout)
2/1
Parker, “Reader Response,” in How to Interpret Literature (CR)
Douglass Before the Public
2/3
Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by Himself
(1845): original introductory material: Preface by Garrison and the letter from Phillips, Chs.
1-8; report: the slave narrative genre
2/8
2/10
2/11
finish the Narrative, including Douglass’s original Appendix
Fuller’s review of the Narrative (in the text, pp. 121-23); Mailloux, “Misreading as a Historical
Act: Cultural Rhetoric, Bible Politics, and Fuller’s 1845 Review of Douglass’s Narrative” (CR)
first Critical Review due in the sakai dropbox by 5 pm
Dickinson and Her “Admiring Bog”
2/15 Dickinson’s poetry I (see E.D. assignment sheet); report: Dickinson’s writing situation
2/17 Dickinson poetry II; Danderand, “Dickinson and the Public”(CR); reports: mid-19thc.“cult of
domesticity;” sentimental poetry of the period
2/22
2/24
Dickinson III; Weisbuch and Orzeck, “Introduction: Dickinson the Scrivener” (CR)—sakai
forum responses (no class)
Dickinson IV; Jackson, “Dickinson’s Figure of Address” (CR)—sakai forum responses (no
class)
Twain and his Customers (the “sold” and the unsold)
2/29 Twain, “How to Tell a Story” (CR); Twain’s introduction to Those Extraordinary Twins;
Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), “A Whisper to the Reader,” Chs. 1-7; report: Twain’s writing
situation
3/2
Pudd’nhead, Chs. 8-17
3/7
finish Pudd’nhead Wilson; Railton, “The Tragedy of Mark Twain, by Pudd’nhead Wilson” (CR)
Dreiser and Performance
3/9
Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900), Chs. 1-12
3/14
3/16
Sister Carrie, Chs. 13-26; report: the publication process for Sister Carrie
Sister Carrie, Chs. 27-38; report: Dreiser’s historical sources
Spring Break
3/28
finish Sister Carrie; Garfield “Taking a Part: Actor and Audience in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister
Carrie”; Rosenbaum, “Performance Anxiety in Sister Carrie: Theodore Dreiser, the Ashcan
School, and Theater Audiences” (CR)
Wharton’s Stagings
3/30 Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905), Book One, Chs. 1-7; report: Wharton’s writing situation
3
4/1
4/3
House, finish Book One; report: tableaux vivants
House, Book Two, Chs. 1-7; report: The House of Mirth’s reception
4/11
finish House; Hochman, “The Rewards of Representation: Edith Wharton, Lily Bart and the
Writer/Reader Interchange” (CR)
Cather’s Audiences: Feel the Power
4/13 Cather, My Antonia (1918), Introduction (part of the novel) and Book I (“The Shimerdas”);
report: Cather’s writing situation
4/18
4/20
My Antonia, Books II and III (“The Hired Girls” and “Lena Lingard”); report: My Antonia’s
reception
finish My Antonia; O’Brien, “Possession and Publication: Willa Cather’s Struggle to Save My
Antonia.” (CR)
4/25
4/27
discuss model comp proposals
workshopping your research essays’ theses
5/2
Discussing the your final essays and “comp” proposals
5/10
Research essay and “comp” proposal due (by noon, in Odd Fellows 235)
About the written work
Due dates. Only two of the due dates for your written work are predetermined: your first critical
review is due on Thursday, February 11 in your sakai dropbox; and the final essay and your “comp”
proposal are due in my office by noon Tuesday, May 10. The other deadlines are determined by
which works you are writing about. For scheduling reasons your short (5-7 page) essay can be
about any text except Douglass’s Narrative and Cather’s My Antonia. The possible due dates for the
short essay are as follows:
Short essay subject
Dickinson poetry
Pudd’nhead Wilson
Sister Carrie
House of Mirth
Deadline (by 4 pm)
Tues. March 1
Thur. March 10
Thur. March 31
Thur. April 14
Your options for the second Critical Review are:
Second Critical Review subject
Jackson, “Dickinson’s Figure of Address”
Railton, “The Tragedy of Mark Twain, by Pudd’nhead Wilson”
Garfield, “Taking a Part…”
Rosenbaum, “Performance Anxiety in Sister Carrie”
Hochman, “The Rewards of Representation”
Deadline (by 4 in dropbox)
Thur. Feb. 25
Tues. March 8
Tues. March 29
Tues. March 29
Tues. April 12
Please note:
1) Regarding your final three essays (the second critical review, the short essay, and the final
research essay), two can be about the same literary text but all three cannot;
2) The Critical Reviews must be handed in to the sakai dropbox by 4 pm on the due date.
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Using criticism; being original. Junior seminars are the classes where students in English get their
most intense practice wrestling with published criticism and making use of it in their own
interpretive work. This fact helps explain the nature of the writing assignments in the course. As
with all the literature classes I teach, however, my first priority with your writing will be to
encourage and reward your own critical independence, originality, and persuasiveness.
Late work. As noted above, the Critical Reviews simply cannot be late, unless one is ill. Other late
written work will be docked 3 points (on a hundred-point scale) for every class day late. For
medical excuses, I need official documentation from the Health Center or your doctor. Please note, as
well, that you cannot qualify to pass the course unless you do all the assigned written work.
Other Course Policies
Attendance: Like all discussion-based classes, this one needs you in attendance, alert and prepared
to shape the conversation. Unexcused absences will adversely affect your grade: more than three
unexcused absences will hurt your class participation grade, with each subsequent absence (beyond
the three) knocking 3 points off that grade (based on a 100-point scale); if you have more than
seven unexcused absences, you cannot pass the course. If you are too sick to come to class, let
me know over email and then, if you want the absence to be excused (that is, not count as one of the
three “free” class misses), please get me some kind of documentation from the Health Center or a
doctor. If you need to miss class for other “official” reasons—a varsity sport contest, a field trip for
another course, etc.—please send me the relevant notice ahead of time. If you need to miss class for
a religious holiday, let me know ahead of time, too.
Documentation style for your essays: All students should use the MLA style for documenting
sources in written work. MLA style is presented in Hacker’s A Writers Reference and can also be
found through the “Documenting Sources” tab at
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/RES5e_ch04_o.html.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the cardinal sin of the intellectual community. Any writing that makes
unacknowledged use of the work of others (their words or ideas or organization), including material
from the Internet, will receive a letter grade of F and will be sent to the Honor Committee, as
required by the faculty handbook.
The Writing Center: All students—no matter their level of competency as writers—are encouraged
to make use of the Learning Commons and the writing consultants there. For details see
http://sites.allegheny.edu/learningcommons/writing/.
Smart phones and other mobile devices. While in class please do not text or use your smart
phone or tablet (etc.) in any way unrelated to the course.
Students with disabilities: students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodations
in this class are encouraged to contact Disability Services at 332-2898. Disability Services is part of
the Learning Commons and is located in Pelletier Library. Please contact that office as soon as
possible to ensure that such accommodations are implemented expeditiously.
How class participation will be evaluated
While it is difficult to quantify the success of a student's contributions to class discussion (at our best
we all contribute differently), here are the general standards I will use to grade participation:
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A range: Participation at this level is marked by its active nature, its consistency, and its quality.
When A participants read an assignment, they prepare to participate in a class discussion; they read
the assignments fully, carefully and critically enough to be ready not just to respond to my questions
but also to initiate discussion with comments and questions of their own. Such participants will also
come to class ready to make and argue assertions about the reading and to think out loud about a
text's relation to its contexts; they will attend to the comments of others in class, agree, elaborate or
civilly disagree with them, bring our attention to passages from the reading to make their point and
at times connect such thinking with earlier readings or previous class discussions. In short, students
who by their engagement in class discussion throughout the semester show themselves to be true
students of the course material--persistently conscientious and inquiring--will get an A for their
efforts. They will also make the course better. (By the way, substituting quantity of participation for
quality will not work.)
B range: Students who come to every class, have almost always done all the reading, and
consistently respond to the questions of others in a way that demonstrates their command of the
reading will earn a B participation grade. What separates this effort from an A one is not so much
quantity (teachers are remarkably good at detecting bs) as the level of preparation--one's reading
and thinking--that has gone on before one gets to class, especially the kind that enables students to
initiate discussion. But you can't get a B participation grade by just showing up, either, or by talking
every once and a while.
C range: A C participant comes to almost all the classes (no more than four unexcused absences),
usually has done most of the reading most of the time, but not with the energy necessary to
demonstrate through participation their ongoing engagement with the material. Such a discussant
contributes infrequently, maybe one time every four or five classes.
D range: Automatic pilot mode. You were physically there most of the time, spoke a few times
maybe, but that was it.
F: Not coming to class is the traditional route.
Students who are reluctant to talk in class can at least partially compensate for their silence by emailing me comments and questions about the reading before the class discussion of it. If you
define yourself as “shy,” though, please don’t convert this definition into permission not to talk.
How essays will be evaluated
An essay in the A range is founded on an original, logical and coherently organized set of ideas; it
makes a clearly discernible and persuasive argument (even if the reader disagrees with its argument); its thinking is, at each turn, absolutely clearly articulated: words carry thought, they don't
obscure it; its sentences use only the words their ideas require, not any more; its paragraphs have
distinct though related roles in the essay's larger argument, each holding one thoroughly asserted
idea (not two competing ideas, not one idea half-asserted); if appropriate it accurately and
thoughtfully uses other sources; and its sentences are without the grammatical, spelling or
typographical mistakes that exacting proofreading would catch. (All of this takes a lot of work. If it is
all very nearly accomplished, the essay usually earns an A-.)
An essay in the B range: a very good paper, founded on solid, persuasive thinking, the writing of
which is clearly and effectively executed. What often prevents an "A" is a lack of originality,
thorough thinking or careful proofreading. If two of these virtues are absent, the essay will usually
earn a B-.
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An essay in the C range: some conspicuous flaw usually earns an essay a C; its argument is really
underdeveloped, it is disorganized, its diction is consistently inarticulate, or it is in dire need of
proofreading.
A D essay either contains more than one of the large problems cited in the "C" description or finds
another way to convince its reader that the author has not spent nearly enough time on the thinking
or writing in the essay.
An F essay misses on all criteria (originality, articulateness, persuasiveness, organization, the
absence of writing mistakes) or is handed in very late. (Most grades below C- are earned this way, in
fact.)