LITERATURE OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH

Knowledge Deepening / Consolidation

The course is also offered to exchange programme students.

•A critical appraisal of the concept of social/cultural identity •An understanding of the historical and social circumstances that formed the backdrop for Southern literary production during the 20th century •The study of important literary (and non-literary) texts from the period of the Southern Renaissance to the present day •A critical approach to “Southern studies” that draws on the literary texts studied, and reimagines a more geographically and ideologically expansive “South” or “Souths”

Overview of the Course: The study of Southern literature has traditionally emphasized a common Southern history, a sense of community and one’s role within it, the importance of religion as a criterion for belonging, and of course a history defined by the claims of race, land, dialect and ownership. Recent critical thinking on Southern studies has sought to challenge these conventional tropes and approaches and reimagine a more geographically and ideologically expansive “South” or “Souths.” This course will introduce students to a proliferation of depictions of “Souths”: nostalgic, cinematic, violent, monstrous, multiethnic, urban, queer, globally aware. The students will be encouraged to appreciate both the extent to which the fabric of the South is changing, but also the extent to which the idea of the U.S. South has been historically constructed. Course Outline Week 1: Introduction Week 2: Romancing the South Week 3: The South as a “Problem” Week 4: The South and the Impossible Load of the Past Week 5: The South and Inivisibility Week 6: Queering the South Week 7: Grotesque Transgressions Week 8: Grotesque Border-Crossings Week 9: The displaced South Week 10: From American South to South America Week 11: The South and the Caribbean Week 12: The South and the World Week 13: Revision/ Discussion/ Practicing annotation and close-reading  Week 1: Introduction Introduction to the course, its aims and objectives.  Week 2: Romancing the South Attachment to the southern land, loving and hating that land, has always been taken as a determining feature of what it means to be southern. The plantation novel existed throughout the nineteenth century, yet Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gone With the Wind and the immense industry in spawned – from the film version to collectibles and sequels – are key elements in the continued force of the Old South mythologies. We will discuss the notions of “South as a cause”, “new South vs old South” and the role of nostalgia in reshaping or freezing imagery about southern history and identity. Core Reading: Welty, Eudora. “Place in Fiction.” In The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays and Reviews. New York: Vintage, 1979. Watch the movie Gone with the Wind (1939), directed by Victor Fleming; produced by David O. Selznick Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. Reprint (New York 1993). Read the first four chapters to get a feel for the language and imagery.  Week 3: The South as a “Problem” In what sense has the South figured as a “Problem” to America? The South historically has presented a special and troubling problem to American ideals, identity and practices. The South, after all, retained slavery two generations longer than did the rest of the Union and relinquished its institution only after losing a Civil War. Only the South organized itself by law, custom and force through racial segregation and white supremacy for almost seventy years. Yet social conditions become social problems only through a cultural politics that interprets these conditions as “problematic” and leads to a collective perception of a region as a “problem.” Core Reading: The following sections from: The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. Edited by William L. Andrews et al. New York and London: Norton&Company, 1998. (ON RESERVE in the English Faculty Library). Smith, Lillian. From Killers of the Dream. Cash, W.J. From The Mind of the South.  Week 4: The South and the Impossible Load of the Past Ambivalence about both the Old South legend and the New South identity permeated the literary worlds of many of the Southern Renaiscence writers. We will examine how in the 1930s southern writers began to ask how such an appealing and glorious past could have degenerated into such a dismal and defective present. Ambivalence about the essence of southern identity will be approached through the writings of white southerners Eudora Welty and William Faulkner. Core Reading: Read from: The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. Edited by William L. Andrews et al. New York and London: Norton&Company, 1998. (ON RESERVE in the English Faculty Library). Faulkner, William. “Dry September.” Welty, Eudora. “Where is the Voice Coming From?”  Week 5: The South and Ιnvisibility This week we will discuss black writers who devoted their talents to re-examining the South during the period between the end of World War I and the civil rights movement. We will pay attention to the emphasis placed on contradictions of the present, uncertainties regarding the future, and the importance of a black history of slavery and invisibility in shaping identities and self-awareness. Core Reading: Read the excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” from: The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. Edited by William L. Andrews et al. New York and London: Norton&Company, 1998. (ON RESERVE in the English Faculty Library).  Week 6: Queering the South Randall Kenan’s writing explore racial and sexual boundaries through an innovative narrative style that blends realistic detail with the supernatural and Southern folklore. We will read excerpts from his work and address the following question: How do the complex intersections of race, religion and sexuality in Kenan’s narrative expand our conceptions of a southern African American literary landscape? Core readings: Randall Kenan’s short story “The Foundations of the Earth” from The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. Edited by William L. Andrews et al. New York and London: Norton&Company, 1998. (ON RESERVE in the English Faculty Library).  Week 7: Grotesque Transgressions (I) We will read the first part of Carson McCullers’ novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café” and we will pay close attention to the delicate balance her narrative weaves between horror and human compassion. Core Reading: McCullers, Carson. “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” (Penguin Classics Reprint, 2002).  Week 8: Grotesque Trasgressions (II) We will read the second part of Carson McCullers’ novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” We will explore constructions of femininity, masculinity and androgyny in her text, and will discuss the ways in which McCullers’ grotesque subjects create a menacing and ultimately transgressive literary landscape.  Week 9: The Displaced South We will discuss the destabilizing and depersonalizing effects of industrialization through a short story by Flannery O’Connor that weaves issues of racial prejudice with concerns about southern identity and the changes brought about by migration. By the 1970s the South had become one of the main immigrant-receiving areas of the nation. We will read “The Displaced Person” with a keen eye for uncovering new definitions of displacement, otherness, foreignness, inhumanity. Core Reading: O’Connor, Flannery. “The Displaced Person” in The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971.  Week 10: From American South to South America We will expand our vocabulary of Southern imagery by engaging in a comparative appreciation of the Americas. This is especially useful in breaking the binary between the U.S. North and South. We will consider the U.S. South in relation to Latin America, and Mexican literature more specifically. We will further discuss borderlands, gender and hybridities and will rethink Southern US identity within a broader Southern geographical landscape that traces networks, common themes and contemporary mobilities. Core Reading: Cisneros, Sandra. “Woman Hollering Creek.” (1991).  Week 11: The South and the Caribbean We will further explore the distinct yet fluctuating boundaries that separate and bond southern peoples by looking at connections that link the American South with the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean islands. How do new appreciations of geographical proximity, climatic conditions, a history of slavery and a peculiar cultural insularity revise our conception of a broader “Southern Region,” where the U.S. South and the Caribbean flow into each other culturally, economically and socially? Core readings: Danticat, Edwidge. “Nineteen Thirty Seven.” In Krik? Krak! New York: Soho Press, 1991. Danticat, Edwidge. “Create dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.” In Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010.  Week 12: The South in the World Finally we will open up our discussion of the U.S South by considering the ways in which contemporary writing echoes global concerns and traces transcultural connections. Having touched upon revisions of southern identity in relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, we will engage with terms such as “the south of the mind”, “post-southern identities,” the “disappearing South,” or “American Souths.” Core readings: Bone, Martyn et al. “The Transnational Turn in the South.” In Where the New World Is: Literature about the U.S. South at Global Scales. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Ayers L. Edward. “The Inevitable Future of the South.” In South to the Future (Ed. Fred Hobson). Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2002. Week 13: Revision Day

Southern Studies, Remapping the South, The Transformation of Southern Identity, Gender Studies, Race Studies, Inter-American Studies

16-11-2020