Schedule

READING KEY: CW = Course Website (pass code for readings = ENGL360); RA = Reading Autobiography;
NC = The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca; BF = The Autobiography of Ben Franklin; FH = Fun Home;
CSN = The Classic Slave Narratives; AL = Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric

NOTE: All Blog posts are due Tuesdays at midnight.  Blog prompts will be provided at the bottom of weekly ClassWrap entries that I will post on Saturday by midnight.  You need to author 10 posts total–5 before spring break and 5 after.  No make-up posts will be allowed.


WEEK 1–Reading & Writing the Self Part I:
History and Theory of Autobiography

MONDAY, 1/10 WEDNESDAY, 1/12 FRIDAY, 1/14
  • Course Introduction
  • Lecture: Self as Story in Words, Pictures and Hypertext
  • 20 % Project: Becoming Intellectual Entrepreneurs
  • Readings: Blogging Instructions (CW); “Life Narrative: Definitions and Distinctions” (RA: 1-19); and “Life Narrative in Historical Perspective” (RA 103-125)
  • Readings: “Autobiographical Subjects” (RA: 21-61)

WEEK 2–Reading & Writing the Self Part II:
Our Character, Our Story

MONDAY, 1/17 WEDNESDAY, 1/19 FRIDAY, 1/21
MLK Day – No Class
  • Readings: “Autobiographical Acts” (RA: 63-102); and peruse–i.e. skim and focus more intently on genres that might interest you–“Appendix A: 60 Genres of Life Narrative (RA: 253-286). Be prepared to discuss a genre you found of particular interest.
  • Readings: Phillip Lopate, “Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character” (CW); Sherman Alexie: “The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me” (CW); “A Tool Kit: Twenty-four Strategies for Reading Life Narratives” (RA: 235-251).

WEEK 3–Native American Autobiography

MONDAY, 1/24 WEDNESDAY, 1/26 FRIDAY, 1/28
  • Lecture: Before the Self: Native American Autobiography
  • Readings: Hertha Dawn Wong, “Pre-Contact Oral and Pictographic Autobiographical Narratives: Coup Tales, Vision Stories, and Naming Practices” (CW); Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World (CW)
  • Readings: “Two Leggings: The Making of a Crow Warrior” (CW).
  • Contemporary Connections: Warrior tales of today: Read H. David Brumble, “The Gangbanger Autobiography of Monster Kody (aka Sanyika Shakur) and Warrior Literature (CW, ~20 pages)
20 % Project Day 1

  • Activities: Brainstorm Projects, be prepared to discuss a tool you found potentially useful onDiRT (Digital Research Tools).
  • Bring RA to class.

 

WEEK 4–Narratives of Discovery:
The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca

MONDAY, 1/31 WEDNESDAY, 2/2 FRIDAY, 2/4
  • Lecture: Discovery Narratives and the Autobiography of Encounter
  • Readings: From “Introduction” (NC: 1-5 and 17); the prefatory letter; and  Chapters 1 (“In wich is told when the expedition departed”) through Chapter 10, (“Of the skirmish we had with the Indians”) (NC: 44-83)
  • Readings: Chapter 11, “Of what happened to Lope de Oviedo with some Indians,” through Chapter 23, “How we departed after having eaten the dogs” (NC 83-125).
  • Readings: Chapter 24, “Of the customs of the Indians of that land” through Chapter 38: Of what happened to the rest of those who had come to the Indies” (NC 125-176).

WEEK 5–Spiritual Autobiography and Reflection in Early America

MONDAY, 2/7 WEDNESDAY, 2/9 FRIDAY, 2/11
  • Lecture: The Puritan Self, the Puritan Mind
  • Reading: Thomas Shephard, “Autobiography,” from God’s Plot (CW).
  • Reading: Michael Wigglesworth, excerpts from his diary (CW); and Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative” (CW); Edward Taylor, “Prologue,” “Meditation 8,” and “Meditation 16” (CW); and “The Last Words and Dying Speech of Levi Ames” (CW)
20% Project Day 2

  • Activities: 5-minute Presentations on DiRT (and other digital humanities research tools) and rough ideas for projects. Gather into groups or begin charting out a solo course.  

WEEK 6–Trials, Captivity, Confession, Poetry:
Forms of Early Women’s Autobiography

MONDAY, 2/14 WEDNESDAY, 2/16 FRIDAY, 2/18
  • Lecture: Genres of Autobiography: Early Women’s Writing
  • Readings: Selected Confessions from Thomas Shepard’s congregation (CW); Ann Hutchinson, from The Examination of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson at the court at Newton, regarding the Antinomian Controversy (CW); Anne Bradstreet “Letter to my Children” and “Meditations Divine and Moral” (CW)
  • Readings: Mary Rowlandson, “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” + “Preface to the Reader” by Increase Mather.
  • Readings: Esther Rodgers, “The Declaration and Confession of Esther Rodgers” (CW); Phillis Wheately, “On Imagination,” and “On Reconciliation” (CW); Anne Bradstreet, “Letter to My Children,” “Prologue,” and “The Author to her Book.”
  • Your Own Connections: Can you come up with a few “contemporary connections” of your own? Please consider and be able to talk about one in class.

WEEK 7–The Canonical Self:
Benjamin Franklin

[friday unit on portraiture]

MONDAY, 2/21 WEDNESDAY, 2/23 FRIDAY, 2/25
  • Readings: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (BF 1-72)
  • Readings: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (BF 72-95)
  • Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (BF 95-176)

WEEK 8–Review, Exam, Discuss

MONDAY, 2/28 WEDNESDAY, 3/2 FRIDAY, 3/4
  • Exam Review
  • In-Class Midterm Exam
20% Project Day 3

  • Activities: Return & Discuss Exams,
  • Due: Submit Rough Timeline and Proposal for your 20% Project

~~~

WEEK 9

Spring Break: No class on 3/7 – 3/11

~~~

WEEK 10: The Self in Chains:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

 

MONDAY, 3/14 WEDNESDAY, 3/16 FRIDAY, 3/18
  • Slave Narratives 325-383 (prefatory matter through Chapter IX)
  • Slave Narratives 383-436 (Chapter X through the end).
  • “Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave” (1938) CW.  From I Belong to South Carolina: South Caroline Slave Narratives (2010)
  • 20% Day
  • Document your work
  • Tag your 20% project page and provide updates

WEEK 11–Modern Selves: Established, Emerging and Transcendent: Brief selections from Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Lucy Larcom, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Antin, Alexander Berkman and Henry Adams 

 

 

MONDAY, 3/21 WEDNESDAY, 3/23 FRIDAY, 3/25
  • Walt Whitman, selections from “Song of Myself” and Specimen Days. (CW)
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience.” (CW)
  • Henry David Thoreau, selections from Walden and his Journals. (CW)
  • Lucy Larcom (1824-1893), excerpts from A New England Girlhood (CW)
  • W.E.B. DuBois, excerpts from The Souls of Black Folk (1903). (CW)
  • Henry Adams, excerpt from The Education of Henry Adams (1918) (CW)
  • Mary Antin, excerpt from The Promised Land (1912) (CW).
  • Alexander Berkman, exerpts from Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912)
  • 20% Day
  • Discuss readings + importance of visual representations of the self from portraiture to the digital image

WEEK 12–Identity, Experiment, and Tradition:
James Baldwin, Gloria Anzaldua, Maxine Hong Kinston, David Shields, Kathleen Norris

MONDAY, 3/28 WEDNESDAY, 3/30 FRIDAY, 4/1
  • James Baldwin, “Autobiographical Note” and “Notes of a Native Son” (1955)  (CW)
  • Gloria Anzaldua, excerpts from Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) (CW)
  • Maxine Hong Kingson, “White Tigers,” from Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1975) (CW)
  • David Shields, excerpts from Reality Hunger: A Manfesto (2010) (CW)
  • 20% Project Day / Individual Conferences

Week 13–The Graphic Memoir:
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home

MONDAY, 4/4 WEDNESDAY, 4/6 FRIDAY, 4/8
  • Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (1-120) (FH)
  • Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (121-232) (FH)
  • 20% Project Day; Individual Conferences

WEEK 14–Post-9/11 Selves:
Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric

MONDAY, 4/11 WEDNESDAY, 4/13 FRIDAY, 4/15
  • Claudia Rankine, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (1-73) (AL).
  • Pay attention to “notes” in the back of the book
  • Claudia Rankine, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (73-end) (AL)
  • 20% Project Day; Individual Conferences

WEEK 15–Online Selves:
Blogging, Facebook, Twitter

MONDAY, 4/18 WEDNESDAY, 4/20 FRIDAY, 4/22
  • Presentations
  • Presentations
  • Presentations

WEEK 16

Monday: Wrap up Presentations, Final Blog Revisions Due, Fill Out Course Evaluations

[Final Exam: Wednesday, April 27, 12:00-3:00, Maybank 220]