Introduction to Social Literature

Spring 2019 @ Pitt-Greensburg: Class meets face-to-face TH 2:30 - 3:45pm in 137 McKenna Hall, Class number: 31365

Taught by: Elisa Beshero-Bondar (“Dr. B”), Associate Professor of English and Director, Center for the Digital Text @ Pitt-Greensburg

Emily Carr, Haida Totems, Cha-atl (1912)
Emily Carr, Haida Totems, Cha-atl (1912)

Course Description

This course explores how history and literature intersect, and how literature reflects on social issues. We will be reading autobiographical narratives, plays, and novels published in the past two centuries. Like a time capsule, each reading offers us a distinct perspective on a community changing under particular pressures over a span of historic and generational time. These texts are designed to look backwards from the time when they were published, to immerse readers in earlier time and place, and to project a sense of “living memory” in a way that is related to the narrative work of history and ethnography. Our readings—both fictional and nonfictional—investigate how inequality, prejudice, deprivation, and addiction transform communities and individuals, and make people acutely conscious of racial, ethnic, and class differences. Working with digital tools throughout this course, we will investigate how these readings place individual characters in family and community contexts in ways that bring large-scale social forces into perspective.

Objectives

Texts (in reading order)

  1. Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (Grand Central Publishing, 2000) ISBN: 9780446675505
  2. Emily Carr, Klee Wyck, intro. Kathryn Bridge (Douglas & McIntyre, 2004) ISBN: 978-1553650256
  3. August Wilson, Gem of the Ocean (Theatre Communications Group, 2006) ISBN: 978-1559362801
  4. August Wilson, Radio Golf (Theatre Communications Group, 2007) ISBN: 978-1-55936-308-2
  5. Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara (Penguin Classics, 2001) ISBN: 978-0140437904
  6. Art Spiegelman, Maus: Survivor’s Tale, vols 1 and 2 boxed set (Penguin, 1993) ISBN: 9780679748403

Grading

Your course grade will be based on Participation and Quizzes (10%), Digital Projects (50%), one Midterm Exam (20%), and one Final Exam (20%).

Grading Scale for Projects and Exams: A: 93-100%, A-: 90-92%, B+: 87-89%, B: 83-86%, B-: 80-82%, C+: 77-79%, C: 73-76%, C-: 70-72%, D+: 67-69%, D: 60-66%, F: 59% and below

Class Policies and Guidelines

Please let us know: If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, please contact both your instructor and the Director of Learning Resources Center, Dr. Lou Ann Sears, 240 Millstein Library Building (724) 836-7098, as early as possible in the term. Learning Resources Center will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.