I. LI 526 Topics in American Literature: L.A. Stories Spring 2016
4 Credits; Meets Wednesdays 10 am - 1:45 pm
Room 301, Emerson College Los Angeles Center, 323-952-6411
Instructor: Paul Mandelbaum / Paul_Mandelbaum@emerson.edu
Office hours: After class or by appointment.
II. Course description and learning objectives:
Los Angeles enjoys a uniquely mythic status, one that writers and filmmakers
have long felt inspired to perpetuate and deconstruct. As portrayed in a rich and varied
literature, the city calls to those seeking fame as well as those who desperately prefer
anonymity. It features natural splendor alongside apocalypse, real-estate booms followed
by riots. Or, as the social historian Mike Davis puts it, sunshine competing against noir.
In this landscape of paradoxical extremes, characters, along with their hopes and dreams,
are put to the test—as is the American dream itself.
By reading, viewing, and then analyzing a range of narrative representations—
including the works of Nathanael West, Joan Didion, Anna Deavere Smith, and many
others—students will develop a deeper understanding of the ways such works impart a
sense of place, as well as other aesthetic, emotional, and moral effects. Students will also
enhance their critical thinking, research, and writing skills and contribute to the continued
scholarship of the class. And they will better appreciate a city that, for the semester at
least, they have decided to call home.
III. Course requirements (and percentage of final grade):
1. Class participation—25%
2. Brief written responses to each week’s reading (beginning week 2)—20%
2. Mid-term essay exam—25%
3. Proposal for final research paper—5%
4. Final research paper—25%. This paper (12-15 pages) should develop an argument
regarding a particular aspect of the LA experience as it’s portrayed across at least two
books from the syllabus and one film. The paper should also engage with at least two
critical essays and provide a bibliography written in MLA Style.
IV. Course calendar (subject to revision):
Week 1, Jan 20: L.A. as Promised Land.
Discussion of RAMONA (novel excerpt by Helen H. Jackson), “Real Property” (personal
essay by Sarah Davidson), “Chronology” (excerpt from Cambridge Companion)
View SWINGERS (part 1).
Week 2, Jan 27: Complications with the L.A. dream.
Discussion of ASK THE DUST (novel by John Fante) and “John Fante’s Eternal City”
(critical essay by Stephen Cooper).
View SWINGERS (part 2).
Week 3, Feb 3: Grabbing the brass ring.
Discussion of WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN (novel by Budd Schulberg) and “Fantasy
Seen: Hollywood Fiction Since West” (critical essay Mark Royden Winchell).
SUNSET BLVD (part 1).
LA Stories syllabus—(p2 of 4)
Week 4, Feb 10: Sunshine and Noir.
Discussion of THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (novel by Horace McCoy), and
City of Quartz (critical excerpt by Mike Davis).
View SUNSET BOULEVARD (part 2).
Week 5, Feb 17: The Burning of Los Angeles.
Discussion of TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES (play by Anna Deavere Smith)
View DAY OF THE LOCUST (part 1).
Week 6, Feb 24: The Burning of Los Angeles (continued).
Discussion of IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW (novel by Sandra
Tsing Loh) and “The Day of the Painter; the Death of the Cock: Nathanael West’s
Hollywood Novel (critical essay by Gerald Locklin).
View DAY OF THE LOCUST (part 2).
Week 7, Mar 2: Mid-term (open-book in-class essay exam).
Week 8, Mar 9: Cultures in Conflict.
Discussion of THE TORTILLA CURTAIN (novel by T.C. Boyle)
View EL NORTE (part 1).
Week 9 Mar 16: Cultures in Conflict (continued).
Discussion of “Crazy Life” (short story by Lou Matthews), “Girl on Fire” (short story by
Yxta Maya Murray), “The Palace of Marriage” (short story by Karen Karbo)
View EL NORTE (part 2).
Week 10, Mar 23: Taming the Environment.
Discussion of GOLDEN DAYS (novel by Carolyn See),
View CHINATOWN (part 1).
Week 11 Mar 30: Taming the Environment (cont’d).
Discussion of “Holy Water” (personal essay by Joan Didion), and “Endings and
Beginnings: Surviving Apocalypse” (critical essay by David Fine).
View CHINATOWN (part 2).
Small group workshop of final project proposals.
Week 12, Apr 6: The Outlaw and the Happiest Place on Earth.
Discussion of “Stupid Girl” (short story by Louis Berney), “The Happiness Project,”
(personal essay by Andrew O’Hagan), and “Chinatown, City of Blight” (critical essay
by Liahna Babener).
View excerpts from LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
One-page proposal for final paper due.
Week 13, Apr 13: Feeling at Home in LA.
Discussion of “Native to the Place,” personal essay by Lynelle George.
View THE BIG PICTURE (part 1)
Week 14, Apr 20: In Closing.
Replacement copies of this syllabus can be found on the “classes” page of www.paulmandelbaum.com
LA Stories syllabus—(p3 of 4)
Discussion of “How to Direct a Major Motion Picture,” short story by Robert Lopez,
View THE BIG PICTURE (part 2).
Full paper due.
V. Required books (links to amazon.com on my website www.paulmandelbaum.com )
Boyle, T.C., THE TORILLA CURTAIN (Penguin)
Fante, John, ASK THE DUST (Black Sparrow)
Loh, Sandra Tsing IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW (Riverhead)
McCoy, Horace, THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (Midnight Classics)
Schulberg, Budd, WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN (Vintage)
See, Carolyn, GOLDEN DAYS (Univ. of California Press)
Smith, Anna Deavere, TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 (Anchor)
V. Additional required reading (posted on Canvas, where you will also find optional
titles not listed here)
“Chronology” (excerpt from Cambridge Companion)
Babener, Liahna, “Chinatown, City of Blight” (critical essay)
Berney, Louis, “Stupid Girl” (short story)
Cooper, Stephen, “John Fante’s Eternal City” (critical essay)
Davidson, Sarah, “Real Property” (personal essay)
Davis, Mike, CITY OF QUARTZ (excerpt, cultural criticism)
Didion, Joan, “Holy Water” (personal essay)
Fine, David, “Endings and Beginnings: Surviving Apocalypse” (critical essay).
George, Lynell, “Native to the Place” (personal essay)
Jackson, Helen Hunt, RAMONA (excerpt, novel)
Locklin, Gerald, “The Day of the Painter; the Death of the Cock: Nathanael West’s
Hollywood Novel (critical essay).
Lopez, Robert, “How to Direct a Major Motion Picture” (short story).
Matthews, Lou, “Crazy Life” (short story)
Maya Murray, Yxta, “Girl on Fire” (short story)
O’Hagan, Andrew “The Happiness Project” (personal essay)
Rhodes, Chip, “Hollywood Fictions” (critical essay).
Winchell, Mark Royden, “Fantasy Seen: Hollywood Fiction Since West” (critical essay)
VII. Grading:
Assignments and exams will be graded according to: coherence of ideas, persuasiveness
of argument, originality and appropriateness of style, and attention to sound prose. Class
participation will be graded primarily on students’ discussion of the texts, films, and their
peers’ contributions.
VIII. Attendance:
Classes start promptly at the published start time. A student who arrives in class later than
10 minutes after the published start time may be marked as absent from that class. Three
absences put any student in jeopardy of receiving an automatic F for the course.
Experiential learning and internship conflicts will not be accepted as excuses for missed
classes or tardiness.
Replacement copies of this syllabus can be found on the “classes” page of www.paulmandelbaum.com
LA Stories syllabus—(p4 of 4)
IX. Emerson’s Disability Statement:
Emerson College is committed to providing equal access to its academic programs and social
activities for all qualified students with disabilities. While upholding this commitment, we require
all Emerson students to meet the high standards of achievement that are essential to the College’s
programs and services. To advance these dual aims, the College will provide reasonable
accommodations to disabled students who request accommodations through the College’s
Disability Services Office (DSO), if the DSO determines that accommodations are both medically
necessary and reasonable. Please note that a requested accommodation will only be approved as
‘reasonable’ if it does not compromise any essential requirements of a course. Students who wish
to request a disability accommodation must submit their request to the DSO, and not to faculty,
since only the DSO is authorized to approve or deny any requests for accommodations. College
employees and student’s family members cannot request accommodations on a student’s behalf.
Rather, students who wish to request accommodations must themselves contact the DSO since
Emerson’s philosophy is that its students are independent and self determined and students with
disabilities—like non-disabled students—have control over their lives here at Emerson and are
ultimately responsible for making their own decisions. Students who know at the start of a
semester that they will need accommodations must submit their accommodation requests to the
DSO within the first two weeks of the semester. If a student becomes ill or disabled during the
course of a semester, or discovers after the start of a semester that he or she needs a disability
accommodation, he or she is encouraged to submit his or her request to the DSO as soon as
possible since the process of approving accommodations takes time, and approved
accommodations will not be granted retroactively. The Associate Director for Disability Services
can be reached at: 617-824-8592, dso@emerson.edu, 5th Floor 216 Tremont Street.
X. Emerson’s Plagiarism Statement:
It is the responsibility of all Emerson students to know and adhere to the College’s policy on
plagiarism, which can be found at: http://www.emerson.edu/policy/plagiarism. If you have any
question concerning the Emerson plagiarism policy or about documentation of sources in work
you produce in this course, speak to your instructor.
XI. Misc.:
Schedule and procedures are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances.
Replacement copies of this syllabus can be found on the “classes” page of www.paulmandelbaum.com