Course Description:
This course is designed to focus on small towns in the Americas. Small towns have, of course, always been at the center of American discourse, from the Puritan’s City on a hill to the lost sites of innocence during the industrialization of the United States. In this course, we will examine the development of small town literature as a narrative that we can use to periodize and historicize both US and Latin American literature. In this manner, we will explore small town literature as the following:

• an aspect of the genres regionalism and local color,
• an important factor in the development of realism and the professionalization of the US literary industry in the late nineteenth century,
• a hermeneutic and/or litmus test for the gender of US writers,
• an important element in the diachronic narrative of American Modernism,
• a bridge that allows us to connect US and Latin American literature as a literature of the Americas, and
• a site of resistance and rearticulation of the US and American experience in the late twentieth century.

Students will be expected to be fluent in the concepts outlined above, and they will be expected to respond to questions formulated on the concepts above.

    We will begin by addressing Harold Frederic and the rise of Realism. We will then chart the development of American genres (Regionalism and Local Color) and a diachronic narrative of Modernism through small town literature (e.g. Masters begat Anderson who begat Faulkner who begat Garcia Marquez). The mid-term will test student knowledge and progress to this point. We will then address contemporary fiction from both the US and Latin America. We will use the themes we develop about small town literature during the first half of the course to read the more recent literature, and we will draw conclusions about the persistence, development, and deployment of the idea and nature of small towns in the Americas.

Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina.
Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio.
Benitez, Sandra. A Place Where the Sea Remembers.
Faulkner, William. The Hamlet: The Corrected Text.
Frederick, Harold. Damnation of Theron Ware.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Jewett, Sarah Orne. The Country of the Pointed Firs.
Masters, Edgar Lee. Spoon River Anthology.
McCullers, Carson. Member of the Wedding.
Taylor, Sheila Ortiz. Coachella.

Weekly Syllabus (note: reading assignments are to be completed by the first day of class for which the specific text is assigned):

Week 1:
8/29 Introduction
8/31 Frederick

Week 2:
9/5 Frederick
9/7 Frederick

Week 3:
9/12 Jewett
9/14 Jewett

Week 4:
9/19 Masters
9/21 Masters

Week 5:
9/26 Anderson
9/28 Anderson

Week 6:
10/3 Faulkner
10/5 Faulkner
Annotated Bibliography due at the beginning of class.

Week 7:
10/10 McCullers
10/12 No class

Week 8:
10/17 McCullers
10/19 Mid-term exam

Week 9:
10/24 No class
10/26 No class

Week 10:
10/31 Garcia Marquez
11/2 Garcia Marquez
Paper Proposals due at the beginning of class. Assignment grade will drop fifteen percent for each day Proposal is late.

Week 11:
11/7 Benitez
11/9 Benitez

Week 12:
11/14 Allison
11/16 Allison

Week 13:
11/21 Allison
11/23 Thanksgiving

Week 14:
11/28 Taylor
11/30 Taylor

Week 15:
12/5 Taylor.
Term Papers due at the beginning of class. Paper grade will drop ten percent for each day paper is late.
12/7 Conclusion

10% Annotated Bilbiography
10% Five-page essay or reaction paper covering specific readings;
10% Twenty minute in-class presentation;
20% Mid-term exam
10% Paper Proposal
30% Research paper or creative project (of equivalent length and quality);
10% Class attendance and participation (to be determined by comments in class as indicator of whether assigned readings have, in fact, been read by individuals).

This assignment is not as hard as it sounds. Using MLA format, list at least ten references related to small towns in literature in your particular field and/or area of interest (creative writing, pedagogy, theory, American lit., English lit., gender issues, sexuality issues, etc.). Each bibliographical entry is followed by a three to four-sentence synopsis of the major points and/or argument of the article of book. Internet web sites, encyclopedias and dictionaries do not count toward the fifteen entry requirement. At least seven of entries must be dated after 1990.

You must write a proposal identifying (either your creative project or) the text you choose and provide a brief bibliography (five entries) of relevant criticism, and turn it in for me to sign. This proposal will be turned in as part of the research paper. If you omit the proposal when you submit the paper, then you will receive a grade of Incomplete for the class.

Fifteen page research paper examining a text of your choice (or an equivalent creative project) with my signed approval. You must cite at least ten references in the form of articles or books with a maximum of two internet web sites counting toward the ten reference requirement; class texts, encyclopedias, and dictionaries do not count toward the ten reference requirement, although if you use information from these sources, they must be cited correctly. Your paper must be written in MLA format. Plagiarism will result in a failing grade.

Important Note:
I will deduct one point for each circled mistake, and these points will be deducted from the score your paper merits for content. Thus, even on the best possible fifteen page paper (A+, which is as rare as hen's teeth), if you average 2.7 mistakes per page, you will fail this course. UNC has extensive resources to assist students with writing. Use them.

Also note that I specify that you submit papers in MLA format. If you do not use MLA format, then I will deduct twelve points from your overall score immediately.

Read and remember this note. It is my experience that UNC students are good students who can successfully write in the English language. However, it is also my experience that often some students do not reread and correct their papers before submitting them. If this is your practice, change it. Now.

Que le vaya muy bien.