Mar 29, 2024  
2016-2017 Academic Catalog 
    
2016-2017 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ENG 330-01 - Studies in American Prose

4 credits (Spring)
“Then everything was dark”:  The Impact of Eugenics in American Literature, 1867-1937. What do murder, suicide, impotence, and same-sex affiliation in novels such as Nella Larsen’s Passing, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men have in common with the preservation of redwoods, “the yellow peril,” or the advent of cultural pluralism? Or why would Woodrow Wilson take such pains to figure the “hyphen” as a “dagger” poised to strike at “the vitals of this Republic?”  Written during a time when American social space and idealizations of national identity were regulated by terms often dictated by devotees of eugenics, such figurative enactments have recently been read as attempts to reinforce reproductive and social engineering by extra-legal means.  This seminar focuses on the way racial, ethnic, and reproductive control is first reinforced by legalized segregation and then complemented and enhanced by techniques advanced by eugenics.  In addition to the aforementioned authors, we will read novels or prose by Lydia Maria Child, Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as view three films–Birth of a NationThe Jazz Singer, and The Mask of Fu Manchu.  Grades to be determined by participation in class discussion and collaborative presentations, two mid-size papers, and a 15 page research paper.

Prerequisite: ENG 227 ENG 228 ENG 229 ENG 231 ENG 232 , or ENG 273 .
Instructor: Andrews