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ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
BA PROGRAMME
2006-7
Dark Reform:
Scandal and Satire in American Culture
EN2321
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Dark Reform: Scandal and Satire in American Culture
Tutor: Tim Armstrong
EN2321 (half-unit)
This course aims to provide an introduction to American literature via the tradition which
David Reynolds labels ‘dark reform’; a satirical and often populist mode which seems out the
abuses which lie beneath the optimistic surface of American life, often via grotesque,
scatological, sexualized and carnivalesque imagery. It explores the contention that because of
America’s ‘exceptionalist’ historiography, allied with its notions of national consensus and
fear of class conflict, political critique has often had to find indirect expression. Topics which
will be discussed include: race and class in America; the critique of ‘big business’; conspiracy
theories and the Jeremiad; the carnivalesque; issues of genre; and relations between writer and
audience.
Students will be expected to gain a basic grounding in and critically evaluate elements of
American historiography and political thought; as well as an understanding of satiric
discourse. As well as studying a range of literature (mainly prose but with some poetry and
drama), students will examine visual material and film, and will develop their skills in making
connections between genres within a cultural field.
Teaching and Attendance The course is taught by a weekly lecture and one-hour seminar,
with approximately eight hours private study and preparation a week. In common with other
courses, there is a 70% attendance threshold, which means that if you miss more that three
seminars without reason (e.g. illness), you may not be allowed to sit the exams and will, as a
consequence, fail the course.
A small part of the lecture hour will be given over to student presentations: these will form
part of the non-assessed coursework load, and will involve teams of 3 students reporting on
their investigation of a topic negotiated with the course leader.
Required reading. The material for each week’s seminar, which may comprise a film or
other kinds of visual material as well as prose fiction, is detailed in the Course Description
below. Some suggestions for additional reading are also offered: although the main task is the
primary reading, secondary material will be needed for presentations and essays. You are also
encouraged to think about and draw in other related materials: Catch 22, Lenny Bruce, Beavis
n’ Butthead; The Simpsons; the Onion etc.
Course Work and Assessment The course will be examined by one assessed essay of 34,000 words. Students will, in addition, be required to submit one non-assessed essay of 2,500
words (the submission date is specified in the published assessment schedule). You will also
be asked to make a presentation at some point, perhaps paired with another student. The nonassessed essay will be returned to you with comments within two weeks. Late work will be
read to ensure that it is of appropriate quality, but may not receive a mark or comments.
Feedback If there are any issues you need to discuss during the course, please see Professor
Tim Armstrong, Room 203 (t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk). At the end of the course, the usual
anonymous questionnaire will be distributed to collect your feedback on the course.
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Books you will need to buy The list is long, I am afraid: inevitably the case with modern,
in-copyright fiction. Some can be found second-hand in the bookshops or via abebooks or
amazon. All films will be available for loan from the Dept. DVD collection:
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Upton Sinclair, The Jungle: The uncensored original edition [1905] (Sharp Press, 2003).
George Schuyler, Black No More [1931] (X Press, 1998)
Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls (Virago, 2003)
E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006)
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (Simon & Schuster, 1996)
Michael Herr, Dispatches (Picador)
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (Picador)
Kathy Acker, Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective and the Burning Bombing of America [two
novellas from the 1970s] (Grove Press, 2002)
George Saunders, Pastoralia (short stories, Bloomsbury, 2000)
About the remainder of this booklet
In what follows you will find
 a week-by-week course description, including relevant secondary reading.
 a general list of further reading which will useful for essays. You are encouraged to find
other materials as well. The resources of the Senate House (University of London) Library,
which has very strong holdings on American Literature (5th floor, south end), are also
recommended.
 a list of non-assessed essay questions.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
Week 1
Slavery: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, selections; Whitman,
Leaves of Grass; Charles Chestnutt, ‘Dave’s Neckliss’ (handouts).
Recommended background reading: David Reynolds, Beneath the American
Renaissance
Week 2
Radicalism, Muckraking and the meatworks: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle: The
uncensored original edition [1905] (Sharp Press, 2003).
Recommended background reading: Cecelia Tichi, Exposés and Excess:
Muckraking in America, 1900–2000 (2004)
Week 3
Satire in the Harlem Renaissance: George Schuyler, Black No More [1931] (X
Press, 1998) and Langston Hughes, poems (handouts).
Recommended background reading: Darryl Dickson-Carr, African American
Satire: The Sacredly Profane Novel (2001)
Week 4
Sex, drugs and postwar prosperity: Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls
(Virago, 2003).
Recommended background reading: Philip D Beidler, Scriptures for a
Generation: What We Were Reading in the 60’s (1994)
Week 5
The Cold War: E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (Penguin Modern
Classics, 2006); Stanley Kubrick, dir, Dr Strangelove (film).
Recommended background reading: Frederick Jameson, Postmodernism
Week 6
Reading Week
Week 7
Race, conspiracy and counter-cultures: Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (Simon
& Schuster, 1996); Warren Beatty, dir., Bulworth (film).
Recommended background reading: Darryl Dickson-Carr, African American
Satire: The Sacredly Profane Novel (2001)
Week 8
Vietnam: Michael Herr, Dispatches (Picador); and Francis Coppola, dir.,
Apocalypse Now (film).
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Recommended background reading: Mark Taylor, The Vietnam War in
History, Literature and Film (2003)
Week 9
Conspiracy: Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (Picador); Ru Mills
internet sites
Recommended background reading: Leo Bersani, Leo, ‘Pynchon, Paranoia,
and Literature’, Representations 25 (Winter 1989): 99-118
Week 10
Pop, Punk and Porn: Kathy Acker, Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective and the
Burning Bombing of America [two novellas from the late 1970s] (Grove Press,
2002)
Recommended background reading: Nicola Pitchford, Tactical Readings:
Feminist Postmodernism in the Novels of Kathy Acker and Angela
Carter (2002)
Week 11
Underclasses: George Saunders, Pastoralia (short stories, Bloomsbury, 2000)
and Michael Moore, dir., Roger and Me (film)
Recommended background reading: any current American political criticism.
Non-assessed essay questions
Write an essay of no more than 2,500 words on one of the following topics. The essay is due I the
date specified in the published assessment schedule.
1. In what ways can American satire be categorized as ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’ in
its cultural implications?
2. Discuss the role of writing on the body in any of the texts you have studied.
3. ‘Conspiracy culture is the product of the fragmentation of modern knowledge, in
which the cult of the “expert” or insider displaced any notion of a common culture’.
Discuss.
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4. Discuss the notion of an ‘underworld’ in any of the texts you have studied.
5. Write an essay on the relation of one of the following topics in American history to the
literature you have studied: the Jeremiad; imperialism; the color line; the moral
crusade.
6. Discuss one of the following formal issues in any of the text you have studied: parody;
intertextuality; allegory; the role of the authorial commentator.
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Secondary reading
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (1968).
Milton J. Bates, The Wars We Took to Vietnam: Cultural Conflict and Storytelling (1996)
Philip D Beidler, Scriptures for a Generation: What We Were Reading in the 60’s (1994)
Leo Bersani, ‘Pynchon, Paranoia, and Literature’, Representations 25 (Winter 1989): 99-118
Malcolm Bradbury and Sigmund Ro (eds), Contemporary American Fiction (1987)
David R. Colburn, and George E. Pozzetta, Reform and reformers in the progressive era
(1983)
Darryl Dickson-Carr, African American Satire: The Sacredly Profane Novel (2001)
M D Fletcher, Contemporary Political Satire: Narrative Strategies in the Post-Modern
Context (1987)
Dustin Griffin, Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (1974)
Craig Howes, ‘Rhetorics of Attack: Bakhtin and the Aesthetics of Satire’, Genre 18 (1986):
215-43.
Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (1985)
Frederick Jameson, Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1996)
Philip K. Jason, Acts and Shadows: The Vietnam War in American Literary Culture (2000)
Peter Knight, Conspiracy Culture - American Paranoia from the Kennedy Assassination to
the X-Files (2000)
Peter Knight, ed. Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America (2002)
James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (2003)
Nicola Pitchford, Tactical Readings: Feminist Postmodernism in the Novels of Kathy Acker
and Angela Carter (2002)
Richard Poirier, A World Elsewhere (1966)
David Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age
of Emerson and Melville (1989)
Louis D. Rubin, Jr, ed., The Comic Imagination in American Literature (1973)
Richard Ruland and Malcolm Bradbury (eds), From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature (1987) [810.9 RUL]
William & Judith Serrin, eds., Muckraking! The Journalism That Changed America (2002).
Mark Taylor, The Vietnam War in History, Literature and Film (2003)
Cecelia Tichi, Exposés and Excess: Muckraking in America, 1900–2000 (2004)
Louise Wade, ‘The Problem with Classroom Use of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle,’ American
Studies 32 (Fall 1991), 79-101.
Mel Watkins, On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying and Signifying: The Underground Tradition
of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture, from Slavery to
Richard Pryor (1994)
Duncan Webster, Looka Yonder: The Imaginary America of Popular Culture (1988)
Steven Weisenburger, Fables of Subversion: Satire and the American Novel, 1930-1980
(1995)
James Harvey Young, Pure Food : Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989)