Schedule

READINGS KEY:

  • CW=Course Website (access via “Readings” tab) 
  • VW = Visiting Walt 
  • WW = Walt Whitman Poetry and Prose 
  • BL = 10:04 
  • TC = This Connection of Everyone with Lungs
  • DLMBL = Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, An American Lyric

WEEK 1: 

MONDAY 1/11 WEDNESDAY 1/13
In Class:

  • Course Introduction
  • Our Whitman / Why Whitman
  • Group Discussion of Whitman’s Influence with examples from poetry and popular culture (materials provided)
  • What we might write about: starting our final project on day one.
In Class:

  • Whitman Biography: Modern, mid-century, and today
  • Whitman’s influence on twentieth-century poetry and beyond

Reading Due:

  • Blogging instructions
  • Whitman Bibliography (use the drop-down to select 2015 and 2014–just skim for items of interest)
  • “Talking Back to Whitman: An Introduction,” Ed Folsom (CW–available under readings tab, check e-mail for info on password)
  • “Allen Ginsberg on Walt Whitman: Composed on the Tongue,” Allen Ginsberg (CW–available under readings tab, check e-mail for info on password)
  • Whitman Biography, Folsom and Price

Reminder: 

WEEK 2

MONDAY 1/18 WEDNESDAY 1/20
MLK Day–No Class In Class:

  • Making the Case: Prefaces, Manifestos, and Defining a Poetics

Readings Due:

  • “Preface” to Leaves fo Grass (WW, 5-26)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 1: Group 1 & 2

WEEK 3: 

MONDAY 1/25 WEDNESDAY 1/27
In Class:

  • Whitman and the American Self
  • “Inscriptions”–Charting Whitman’s Range (in class)
  • “Extending the Conversation” Presentation (Prof VZ–Whitman and Beyond)

Readings Due:

  • “Song of Myself” (188-247)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 2: Group 1

 

 

In Class:

  • Whitman and the American Self

Reading Due:

  • “I Sing the Body Electric” (WW 250-258)
  • Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” (Audio–we will listen in class)
  • George Oppen, “Myself I Sing” (LINK)
  • Langston Hughes, “A Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “I, Too”  (LINK)
  • Sherman Alexie, “Defending Walt Whitman” (VW)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 2: Group 2

WEEK 4: 

MONDAY 2/1 WEDNESDAY 2/3
In Class:

Readings Due: 

  • “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (WW 307-314)
  • As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life (WW 394-396)
  • “To Brooklyn Bridge” and “Cape Hatteras,” Hart Crane (CW)–available under “Readings”

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 3: Group 2
In Class:

  • Whitman and Critique: Poetry of Political Engagement

Reading Due:

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 3: Group 1

WEEK 5: 

MONDAY 2/8 WEDNESDAY 2/10
In Class: 

  • Whitman as the World’s Poet: Focus on Spanish-Speaking Inheritance

Readings Due:

  • “Introduction,” Walt Whitman and the World (LINK)–note that this entire book is available on the Whitman Archive linked in the navigation bar
  • “Salut au Monde” (WW 287-297)
  • Pablo Neruda, “Ode to Walt Whitman” (VW 157-161)
  • Federico Garcia Lorca, “Ode to Walt Whitman” (VW 134-138)
  • Neruda, “We Live in a Whitmanesque Age” (CW)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 4: Group 1
In Class:

  • Whitman and Others: Whitman’s Queer Children, Racial Identity, and Gender

Reading Due:

  • Whitman, “In Paths Untrodden” (WW 268)
  • Whitman, “Whoever You Are Holding me Now in Hand” (WW 270-272)
  • June Jordan “For the Sake of a People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us” (CW)
  • Martin Espada, “How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way” (LINK)
  • Yusef Komunyakaa, “Kosmos”  (VW 120-122)
  • Mark Doty, “Letter to Walt Whitman” (39-49)
  • Sharon Olds, “Nurse Whitman” (162)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 4: Group 2

WEEK 6: 

MONDAY 2/15 WEDNESDAY 2/17
In Class:

  • Whitman, War, Patriotism

Readings Due:

  • Whitman, “Beat! Beat! Drums!” (WW 419-420)
  • Whitman, “The Wound-Dresser” (WW 442-445)
  • Dave Smith, “With Walt Whitman at Fredericksburg” (VW 187-188)
  • Whitman, “Over the Carnage Rose a Prophetic Voice” (WW 449)
  • Whitman, “The Artilleryman’s Vision” (*WW 450-451)
  • Whitman, excerpts from Specimen Days “WW 745-753)
  • W.S. Di Piero, “Walt, The Wounded (VW 36-38)
  • Brian Turner, “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center” (LINK) and “Phantom Noise” (LINK)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 5: Group 2
In Class:

  • Whitman and the National-Personal Elegy

Reading Due:

  • Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (WW 459-467)
  • Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!” (WW 467-468)
  • Whitman, “This Compost” (495-497)
  • Jack Spicer, “Some Notes on Whitman for Allen Joyce” (LINK)
  • Martin Espada, Rain without Rain (LINK)
  • Louis Simpson, “Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain” (VW 183)

Assignment Sheets:

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 5: Group 1

WEEK 7: 

MONDAY 2/22 WEDNESDAY 2/24
In Class

  • Whitman’s Spiritual Ascent

Readings Due:

  • Whitman, “Preface, 1876” (1005 – 1014)
  • Whitman, “Passage to India” (WW 531-540)
  • Whitman, “Now Finale to the Shore” (WW 608)
  • “Joy, Shipmate, Joy!” (WW 608)
  • Whitman, “The Untold Want” (WW 608)
  • Whitman, “Portals” (WW 608)
  • Whitman, “These Carols” (WW 608)
  • Whitman, “So Long!” (WW 609-612)
  • Whitman, “Prayer of Columbus” (WW 540-542)
  • Robert Duncan, “Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar” (just section II)
  • Hart Crane, “Atlantis” (LINK), and also look back to Cape Hatteras, an earlier section from the same poem that prepares us for this “ascent”
  • Richard Eberhart, “Centennial for Whitman” (VW 49)

Assignment Due:

  • Optional Make-up Blog or Bonus
In Class:

  • Late Whitman and the Presence of Whitman’s Lateness 

Assignment Sheet:

Readings Due:

  • Whitman, “Preface to 2d Annex” (WW 637-638)
  • Whitman, “A Backward Glance O’Eer Travel’d Roads” (WW 656-672)
  • “Whitman, “The Dismantled Ship” (WW 634)
  • Whitman, “Going Somewhere” (WW 627)
  • Whitman, “Continuities” (WW 626)
  • Whitman, “To Get the Final Lilt of Songs” (WW 624)
  • Whitman, “Out of May’s Shows Selected” (WW 617)
  • Whitman, “A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine” (WW 614)
  • Good-Bye my Fancy” (WW 639-640)
  • Whitman, Mirages (WW 652)
  • Robert Creeley, “Reflections on Whitman in Age” (LINK)
  • D.A. Powell, “Good-bye My Fancy” (LINK)–also “Cosmos, late blooming” and “Sprig of Lilac (CW)
  • Allen Ginsberg, “Personal Ad” (CW)
  • C.K. Williams, “The United States” (CW)
  • Robert Duncan, “After Long Illness” (CW)

Assignment Due:

  • Optional Make-up Blog or Bonus

WEEK 8:  

MONDAY 2/29 WEDNESDAY 3/2
In Class:

  • Towards the Final Project

Assignment Due: 

Individual Conferences: 

Assignment Due: 

  • Attend pre-break one-on-one conferences

WEEK 9: Spring Break

WEEK 10: 

MONDAY 3/14 WEDNESDAY 3/16
In Class: 

  • Whitman and the Novel

Readings Due: 

  • 10:04, Ben Lerner (1-158)

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 7: Group 1

 

In Class:

  • Whitman and the Novel

Readings Due: 

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 7: Group 2

WEEK 11: 

MONDAY 3/21 WEDNESDAY 3/23
In Class:

  • Whitman, Connection, Complicity, and the Natural World

Readings Due:

  • This Connection of Everyone with Lungs, Juliana Spahr

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 8: Group 2
In Class: 

  • Whitman, Connection, Complicity, and the Natural World
  • Final Project conversation

Readings Due:

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 8: Group 1

WEEK 12: 

MONDAY 3/28 WEDNESDAY 3/30
In Class: 

  • Whitman and the Autobiographical Self
  • Assignment Sheet: Proposal & Final Project.

Readings Due:

  • Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 9: Group 1

 

In Class: 

  • Whitman and What it Means to be a Citizen
  • Class won’t meet (but please due blog) due to unexpected out-of-town travel

Readings Due:

  • Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine

Assignment Due:

  • Blog 9: Group 2


WEEK 13: 

MONDAY 4/4 WEDNESDAY 4/6
In Class: 

  • Library Workshop–Mentored research Day. Meet in rotunda of Addlestone Library.

 

In Class: 

  • Proposal Workshop

Assignment Due:

  • Formal Proposals Due

WEEK 14: 

MONDAY 4/11 WEDNESDAY 4/13
 

In Class

  • Literature Review Presentations

Assignment Due: 

  • Whether you are working on a digital project or a more traditional project, you will all assemble a research conversation surrounding your project. This presentation is a 10 minute over view of that conversation as it begins to unfold.
Conferences 

  • Meet one-on-one Wednesday-Friday to discuss annotated bibliography (meetings take the place of regularly scheduled class)

Assignment Due:

WEEK 15: 

MONDAY 4/18 WEDNESDAY 4/20
Conferences

  • Monday’s and Thursday’s class will be replaced by individual conferences

Assignment Due: 

  • Final Project Drafts due Sunday 4/17 by midnight
Final Class 

  • Fill out course-instructor evaluations, senior survey, and conduct final peer-review session.

Note: we will hold a peer review session on Thursday 4/21 (our official last day of class)

Final Project Presentations:

Monday April 25, 4-7: Whitman Conference

Blog 10: Final Project Post (by 4:00 on April 25)


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