Sample Syllabi

Description:

From the nation’s earliest, independent moments, the United States of America was born out of war, and war remains its constant companion. Yet, military engagement embodies only a portion of the ongoing conflicts tearing at the nation’s soul. Evolving cultural values continually challenge traditionalist views of the nation, leading to the culture wars over equal treatment of all Americans. American literature has paid keen attention to these differing valences of war, from valorizing bravery in military conflict to representing identities lost or destroyed in cultural struggles. Moreover, American literature offers special attention to how military and cultural conflict often intertwine and inform how national identity is constructed. As such, this course examines American war stories from the past century and a half by paying attention to the breadth of American conflicts, as well as the complex depth of the issues at their heart. The course begins in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, with Mathew Brady’s early photography and stories taken from the battlefields as the nation reconciles with catastrophic bloodshed. From that starting point, the course will move through diverse narratives that contend with military experience and ongoing struggles of individuals marginalized for their race, gender, sexuality, and/or disabilities. Intertwining all these issues, the course concludes with Carol Tyler’s graphic memoir, Soldier’s Heart, a narrative of intergenerational trauma in the aftermath of war. Along the way, several questions will guide how the course interrogates America’s continual relationship with conflict and struggle. How did the Civil War and its aftermath fundamentally alter the American cultural landscape? How has American fascination with battlefield valor shaped views of home front struggles for equality? To what extent is America a nation locked in permanent conflict?

Texts:

Mathew Brady – Civil War Photography

Walt Whitman – Memoranda on the War 

Muriel Rukeyser – The Book of the Dead

James Baldwin – Another Country

Leslie Marmon Silko – Ceremony

Carol Tyler – Soldier’s Heart

Description: 

Adventure! Freedom! Self-Discovery! No School! These are only a few reasons why the summer season has taken a mythologized position in popular culture. Free of the limitations and strictures of the traditional school year, adolescents openly gain knowledge of the world, the self, and, perhaps most importantly, love. For these reasons and many more, summer is often thought of as a time of boundless optimism. Summer is when adolescents can define themselves as they confidently transition into adulthood. But do these myths of summer match reality? Does this optimism apply equally to children in disadvantaged or marginalized communities? Is there a dark side to the summer experience that underlines shifting cultural attitudes toward not only summer but adolescence as a whole? Summer-centric media has often dealt with these questions, but over the past few decades, media has increasingly taken these questions to heart. Shifting away from depictions of boundless optimism, and instead focusing on the tumultuousness of growing up faced by all adolescents, creators temper optimism with uncertainty, fear, and disappointment. Hope often burns bright at the end of summer, but that hope must now be earned through emotional and physical trials and tribulations. 

This course seeks to address the significance of this shift in summer-centric media, as well as explore the broader cultural implications and revelations this shift reveals. To do so, this course engages media that occurs over the course of a single summer and focuses on young adults. Through their engagement with these media artifacts, students will develop both short and long-form arguments that articulate how summer finds itself as a mythologized season.

Texts:

Ray Bradbury – Dandelion Wine

Friday the 13th (1980)

Gravity Falls

Jaws (1975)

Meatballs (1979)

Nancy comics

Stand By Me (1986)

Summer Camp Island

Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, and Brooke Allen – Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy

Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki – This One Summer

Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup – Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (12th edition)