Course description: This course considers selected contemporary American memoirs and some of the questions surrounding their production:  What are the characteristics of  memoir?  What are its purposes?  How is it different from "objective" or "factual" writing, if it is?  How is it "literary"?  What is its relation to experience--that is, in what ways is it shaped by experience, and in what ways does it shape experience? Most important, in what ways does it express (or create) a "self"?

To approach these questions we will consider briefly some statements and documents (such as statistics and news reports) that claim for themselves the status of fact or objectivity, and some others (such as poems) that claim for themselves the status of truth.  The majority of our time will be spent looking at longer works that are identifiably and self-consciously memoir and literary non-fiction, all of which are written by Americans, but diverse Americans with diverse experiences in terms of gender, culture, class, and race.  In noting and discussing their differences, we should begin to develop a vocabulary that allows us to discuss intelligently memoir, or what Tobias Wolff calls the "story" of memory.
 

Required texts:

Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. Originally published 1955.
Dillard, Annie. An American Childhood. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
Gordon, Mary. The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father. New York: Random House, 1996.
Karr, Mary. The Liar's Club: A Memoir. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Momaday, N. Scott. The Way to Rainy Mountain. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1969.
Wolff, Tobias. This Boy's Life. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

Requirements:

Response papers as assigned; mid-term (100 points); one 8-10 page non-fiction essay (200 points); one 10-12 page critical/investigative essay (400 points); final exam (200 points); class participation (100 points).
 

Date                      Assignment

August 26   Representation: reports, statistics, poems, non-fiction
August 28                "                   "

September 2   Lorrie Moore: "People Like That Are the Only People Here"
September 4   Tobias Wolff:  This Boy's Life

September 9   This Boy's Life
September 11    "            "

September 16   Annie Dillard:  An American Childhood
September 18                "                   "

September 23    An American Childhood
September 25                "                   "

September 30   Eavan Boland: "The Woman The Place The Poet" (handout)
October 2   Mary Gordon: The Shadow Man                                               Paper #1 due

October 7   The Shadow Man
October 9        "            "

October 11-19  Fall Break

October 21   Mid-term
October 23   Richard Rodriguez: "Credo" (handout)

October 28    Mary Karr: The Liar's Club
October 30                "                   "

November 4   The Liar's Club
November 6       "            "

November 11   The Liar's Club
November 13   James Baldwin: Notes of a Native Son

November 18   Notes of a Native Son
November 20   N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain

November 25   N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain                             Paper #2 due

November 26 (4 p.m.)-November 30 Thanksgiving Break

December 2   Maxine Hong Kingston:  "White Tigers" (handout)
December 4   "White Tigers"

December 9    "White Tigers"
December 11   Lorrie Moore: "People Like That Are the Only People Here"

Disabilities:  Students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations to fully participate in course activities or meet course requirements are encouraged to register with the Office of Disability Services to discuss access issues. Please contact Dr. MeShelda A. Jackson by email mjackson@stfrancis.edu or phone 815-740-3461.