EL 206

EL 206 | American Literature After 1865

Spring 2024

---

Useful Links: Course Wiki, Blackboard + Find the Zoom Link @ the Wiki
Research Help: Online version of the “Research as a Process” handout: here.
Necessary Link: Etiquette for attending a virtual class: here.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 & Final

Am Lit eTexts and Helpful Sites: Here
Overview of Authors: Here

---

American Literature After 1865 picks up just after the Civil War and continues on through the 20th century, so we go from locomotives and industrial revolution to the Internet and smart phones (loosely speaking). By the time we’re through, you ought to have a pretty good working sense of the chronology of American literature since Lincoln. We’ll look particularly at American Realism and Regionalism, Naturalism, Modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and Postmodernism, with attention to minority and immigrant voices at all stops. We’ll sample poems, essays, folk tales, short stories, and more, and as we do so we’ll think about why these authors wrote in the ways they did during the times when they did it. We’ll also consider strategies for interpreting these different kinds of literary expression. The reading load won’t knock you flat, but you should expect to read at a steady clip of 20-30 anthology pages per class session, typically (some days less, some days more). You are heartily encouraged to take time to re-read, especially on lighter reading days. The best and most satisfying reading is often re-reading.

---

Assignments/Scores to Anticipate

1. A Daily Questions and Comments Journal
2. Daily Quizzes (If There’s Reading, There Might Be a Quiz)
3. A Researched Author Snapshot Paper (2-4 pages)
4. Three Short Close Readings + One Revision (~2 pages each)
5. Three Exams, Each Including Essay Portions
6. A Reflection on Writing for the Courese (2-5 pages)
7. Attending a Literary Reading + A Quick Response (Christian Wiman, Mar. 5, 7:00)
8. A Course Participation Score

You Should Always Have the Readings in Front of You in Class

Right in front of you, even if on a screen. But not on a small screen. Something with dimension, man. Something that lets the text breathe. We’re here to read together. Let the text take its right place.

---

Week 1 (Feb. 2)

• Due NEXT Wednesday: Sign up for Author Snapshot research subject (on the wiki: here) before next Wednesday’s class.
• Notice that “due” items and small notes about any given week are listed right under each week’s heading.
• AM = American Murmurations (the ebook anthology you can find at Blackboard). Please Note: All readings until about Week 5 (and some after) are available in the AM anthology. The schedule will note when you should absolutely switch over to the Heath.
• Remember to begin your Questions and Comments Journal with next Monday’s readings.
• Look! I’m saying it twice! Remember to begin your Questions and Comments Journal! Keep this thing up! The Q&C journal is most useful to those students who formulate their questions and comments before class, as the assignment requires.

Day 1: No Class Yet

Day 2: Still no class. Sad! Rotten.

Day 3: Class! Course Introduction

After Class: Watch: “Wikis in Plain English” (online + embedded below)

And Then: Go to the wiki and introduce yourself. (A quick assignment, worth some easy, easy daily/quiz points to you. Due before our next class meeting.)

---

Week 2 (Feb. 5, 7, and 9)

• Due Monday: Self intro on course wiki (link above) before class.
• Day 1 below has you doing a lot of little “getting ready for the course” work. Small stuff, but worth your time. Work that list!
• Tuesday Night, 9 pm: Starting at 9 PM on Tuesday Night, you may choose your Author Snapshot authors at the wiki.
• To Be Clear: The readings and activities are due on the day where they appear. (So you’re reading Twain for Monday’s class meeting, and so on.)

Day 1: Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens): “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” and excerpts (in AM) from Huckleberry Finn (“Notice,” “Explanatory,” and Chapters 1-2, 31)

Watch: “Wikis in Plain English” (online)

And Then: Go to the wiki and introduce yourself. (A quick assignment, worth some easy, easy daily/quiz points to you.)

Note: If for any reason the AM anthology isn’t available yet, you can get a jump on your Mark Twain reading here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53

Need a Simple eBook Reader? –> Calibre will do it.

Oh, hey! Start that Questions and Comments Journal! Have I mentioned this a lot?

Highly Recommended: Read the first three pages of the “Author Snapshot” packet. Be sure you understand what the assignment is asking you to do!

Tuesday Night, 9 pm: Starting at 9 PM on Tuesday Night, you may choose your Author Snapshot authors at the wiki.

Day 2: Joel Chandler Harris: “Free Joe and the Rest of the World” (in AM) and selections from Uncle Remus (“Tar Baby” and “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for…”) + Additional Short Folk Tales (all in AM, though some of this is in some versions of the Heath, too): “EDITOR’S NOTE from ‘Animal Tales from North Carolina,'” “When Brer Deer and Brer Terrapin Runned a Race,” “Why the Spider Never Got in the Ark,” “How Brer Rabbit Practise Medicine,” “Brer Rabbit Born to Luck,” “Malitis,” “The Flying Africans”

Please Note that a couple of the folk tales are available only via the AM anthology; doing it this way gave me the chance to give you some cool stuff that goes beyond the Heath.

Note, too: Where/if you find the transcribed dialects in these pieces hard to understand, try reading aloud. It can help clear things up.

On Passing Quizzes: I’ll never be trying to truly stump you on a daily quiz, if we have one. Serious Advice: Keep track of characters, situations, and major themes you see in the writing. Put ’em in your notes. Review before class. This will help you to be ready.

Remember to choose your research brief author before today’s class meeting.

On Research: The “Research as a Process” handout is online, for easy access. Start working through that process!

Need a Simple eBook Reader you can download to your computer? –> Calibre will do it.

Day 3: William Dean Howells: “Editha” + excerpt from “The Editor’s Study.” (The “Editor’s Study” excerpt is printed in Heath Vol. C, but it’s not available in the Concise Heath, so, for convenience, I’ve put it online, here. Read that and “Editha.”)

Heads Up! Daisy Miller (which we start for next time) is long! Plan accordingly for next week’s reading!

By the Way: There’s a great online note-taking app out there called Evernote. You’re not required to use it, but it could turn out to be just the tool you need to get organized for your Author Snapshot. Spend 10-15 minutes with it to see if it might work for you.

If you haven’t yet given a slow and careful read to the Close Reading assignment sheet, now would be a very, very good time to do that.

In AM, you can read–if you’ve a mind to–the whole of Howells’s Criticism and Fiction. It’s definitely not required! But the little “Editor’s Study” excerpt we’re reading for today became part of this longer work by Howells, and you might be interested in taking a look. (It’s there–the little excerpt is–at Section 2, Paragraphs 2-3, beginning with “Nevertheless, I am in hopes…”)

---

Week 3 (Feb. 12, 14, and 16)

• Due Friday at 5:00: Close Reading #1 to Eli Review
• Optional/Recommended: This week would be a very good time to meet with some classmates and workshop your first close readings. Or to take an initial draft of your first close reading to the Composition Commons for a consultation.

Day 1: Henry James: Daisy Miller (Parts I and II) + Review “Realism” Handout (Available @Bb)

Note that some versions of Daisy Miller divide the story into two, instead of four, parts. If that’s the case for the version you have, please note that you’re reading up to this: “Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling bottle. ‘And that,’ she exclaimed, ‘is the young person you wanted me to know!'”

Day 2: Daisy Miller (Parts III and IV)

Are you feeling stuck getting started on CR#1? Review some possible starting points, here.

Day 3: Charles Waddell Chesnutt: “The Goophered Grapevine”

Due at 5:00: CR#1 to Eli Review, for Review

Notice that “Up the Coulé,” for Monday, is a bit long. Same is true of “The Open Boat,” also coming next week. Check ’em and plan accordingly. These stories are brilliant but don’t want to be rushed.

↓↓↓ Hey, Are You Thinking About The Research? ↓↓↓

If you haven’t yet worked through at least the “Step 1: Focused Overviews” part of the “Research as a Process” process (see here) for your Author Snapshot, you may be falling behind. Take an hour and do some research this weekend!

---

Week 4 (Feb. 19, 21, and 23)

• Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli Review for CR#1
• Due Thursday at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli Review for CR#1
• Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#1 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)
• This week, you should be moving forward with your research agenda for the Author Snapshot, if you haven’t made any moves yet on that. Start by writing down some research goals for yourself for the week, and literally schedule some library time for yourself—a few hours just being a top-notch literature nerd in that big building full of books.

Day 1: Hamlin Garland: “Up the Coulé” (A Little Long! Plan ahead!)

Hey, keep up with your Questions and Comments Journal! (This is the last time I’ll put in the Q&C journal note, but don’t forget to keep up!)

Note that “The Open Boat,” too, is a bit long. (Due Wednesday.) Also notice where I put the comma after “Boat.” And then the period after “Boat.” This is the right way. No joke.

Day 2: Stephen Crane: “The Open Boat,” “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” (in the AM), and selected poems (in the AM: “God lay…,” “Do not weep…,” “A man said…,” “There was a man…”) + Review “Naturalism” Handout (Available @Bb)

Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli for CR#1
Due *Thursday* at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli for CR#1

Not Required Reading, but of interest: Scans of the original printings of Crane’s two poetry collections, here and here. There’s a lot of cool stuff squirreled away at Archive.org.

Day 3: Jack London: “South of the Slot” + Frank Norris: “Fantaisie Printaniere” (in the AM) (There’s an online version of the Norrisa that omits pages; don’t use it!)

BONUS: “To Build a Fire,” online, or in AM. “To Build a Fire” is not required, but it’s a short, brutal, hypothermic classic of Naturalism. Worth reading, if you’ve never encountered it before.

Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#1 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)

Note that a late due time like this is designed not to make you write on Friday night but to give you breathing room, in case you need it.

---

Week 5 (Feb. 26 and 28)

• Head’s Up! Exam 1 is NEXT Monday!
• Optional/Recommended: This would be a very good week to meet with some of your classmates and study together for the exam. There’s no better review move than talking over the texts, characters, and themes with cheerful peers.

Day 1: Mary Wilkins Freeman: “A New England Nun” + Sarah Orne Jewett: “A White Heron”

Receive in Class: Exam 1 Study Guide

Day 2: Kate Chopin: “Désirée’s Baby” + Alice Dunbar-Nelson: “Sister Josepha” and (in the AM) “The Praline Woman”

Day 3: No Class (Faculty Development Day). Please use good judgment in your leap year celebrations.

---

Week 6 (Mar. 4, 6, and 8)

• Monday: Exam 1
• If your Author Snapshot is sill in the future, plan a couple of library hours for this week, after the exam. The trick to enjoying this project is giving yourself time and space to dive in!

Day 1:  Exam Day + Tomorrow is the Christian Wiman Reading

Exam #1 of 3

TUESDAY NIGHT: Required event + brief response. “Christian Wiman is a poet and Professor of the Practice of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School. He is the author of many works of prose and poetry, including My Bright Abyss and Every Riven Thing. He is a former editor of Poetry magazine, a former Guggenheim Fellow, and has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic Monthly. His particular interests include modern poetry, the language of faith, and what it means to be a Christian intellectual in a secular culture.Locations and Times. March 5, 2024, at 7 p.m. Weyerhaeuser Hall, 107.

Day 2: Booker T. Washington: Up from Slavery, Chapter 3  + Langston Hughes: “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (prose) and “The Weary Blues” (poem)

Day 3: Jean Toomer: “Blood Burning Moon” + W.E.B. Dubois: The Souls of Black Folk Chapter 1 + Zora Neale Hurston: “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” (in AM)

Due Friday at 5:00: Three sentence personal note (or thoughtful haiku) about the Wiman reading. (@Wiki.)

Time for a Play! There will typically be only eight big mainstage WU plays during a typical four years at Whitworth, and one of them, a production of Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, will run this weekend and next. Go see the play! (Details) (Not required, except for the sake of your immortal soul. Take Note: If you go and send me a picture of yourself at the start of the play and the end, showing the stage in each pic, you get five bonus quiz points.)

---

Week 7 (Mar. 11, 13, and 15)

• Due Friday at 5:00: CR#2 to Eli Review
• Due Friday at 11:45: Questions and Comments Journal, Part 1
• Optional/Recommended: This would be a good week to meet with some of your classmates to workshop your critical responses. (And don’t forget the Comp Commons.)

Day 1: Zora Neale Hurston: “The Gilded Six Bits” + Zitkala Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin): from “The School Days of an Indian Girl” (read parts 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7)

Day 2: Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton): “A Half Caste” (online or in the AM) + Sui Sin Far (in the AM or @Bb) (Edith Maude Eaton): “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian” and “Mrs. Spring Fragrance”

Heads Up: Read the actual short story “Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” NOT “In the Land of the Free,” which is in some Heath Vol. C and Concise editions and which came from the long collection of stories called Mrs. Spring Fragrance. The actual story “Mrs. Spring Fragrance” can be found in our e-anthology/AM.

Are you feeling stuck getting started on CR#2? Review some possible starting points, here.

Day 3: Edith Wharton: “The Other Two” + “Roman Fever””

“The Other Two” is in AM, but “Roman Fever,” which is still under copyright, is available only in Heath Vol. D or the Concise Heath. (The longer Heath has several selections from Wharton, including “The Other Two.”)

Due at 5:00: CR#2 to Eli Review, for Review

Due Friday at 11:45: Questions and Comments Journal, Part 1

---

Week 8 (Mar. 18, 20, and 22)

• Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli Review for CR#2
• Due Thursday at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli Review for CR#2
• Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#2 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)
• Hey, it’s advising week. Go see your advisor.

Day 1: MODERNISM PRIMER: Ezra Pound: “A Retrospect,” “In a Station of the Metro” + H.D.: “Oread” + TS Eliot: “Preludes“; Carl Sandburg: “Chicago,” “Fog” + Review Modernism Handout (Available on Bb)

The links above go to the Poetry Foundation, which is one of the great sites online for learning about poets.

Day 2: Sherwood Anderson: “Hands” (AM or Vol. D or Concise Heath) + Ernest Hemingway: “Hills Like White Elephants” + Gertrude Stein: from The Making of Americans (excerpt in the Heath)

Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli for CR#2
Due *Thursday* at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli for CR#2

Day 3: Ernest Hemingway: “The Killers” (@Bb); E. E. Cummings: “Buffalo Bill’s,” “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls,” “next to of course god America i” (online)

Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#2 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)

Spring Break! Next Week is SPRING BREAK. Don’t come to class, okay?

---

Week 9 (April 3 and 5)

• A WEEK from NEXT MONDAY: Notice that Exam 2 will be a week from next Monday!

Day 1: Easter Break / No Class

Day 2: William Carlos Williams: “The Young Housewife,” “Portrait of a Lady,” “The Red Wheelbarrow,” “The Great Figure” (online), “This is Just to Say” (online); Wallace Stevens: “The Snow Man,” “Anecdote of the Jar,” “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” (online)

Day 3: Edgar Lee Masters: “Petit, the Poet,” “Seth Compton,” “Lucinda Matlock”; Robert Frost: “Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

---

Week 10 (April 8, 10, and 12)

• NEXT MONDAY: Exam 2
• Optional/Recommended: Exam prep with classmates.

Day 1: T. S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Read this one 2-3 times, at least, and come up with some theories. Eliot really didn’t want it to be a one-read poem.

Day 2: William Faulkner: “Barn Burning” (Back to Prose! Budget Your Time!)

Brilliant prose, but it will slow you down. And it’s a bit longer than usual, especially compared to our recent poetry-heavy days. Give it the time it needs!

Day 3: 30-minute In Class Writing Day (Part of Exam 2)

---

Week 11 (April 15, 17, and 19)

• Due Friday at 5:00: CR#3 to Eli Review
• Optional/Recommended: Reading response workshopping with peers.

Day 1:  Exam Day

Exam #2 of 3

Day 2: Eudora Welty: “Petrified Man” (@Bb) + “The Wide Net”

Are you feeling stuck getting started on CR#3? Review some possible starting points, here.

Day 3: Flannery O’Connor: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” + Possible TBA Text

Due at 5:00: CR#3 to Eli Review, for Review

---

Week 12 (April 22, 24, and 26)

• Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli Review for CR#3
• Due Thursday at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli Review for CR#3
• Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#3 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)
• Optional/Recommended: Reading response workshopping with peers? Or meet with peers to discuss the upcoming reflective essay?

Day 1: Alice Walker: “Laurel” (in the Heath), “Everyday Use” (@Bb) + Advice: Begin Drafting and Reading for Your Upcoming Reflective Essay

Day 2:  James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues”

Due Wednesday @ Class Time: Feedback to Eli for CR#3
Due *Thursday* at 11:45 PM: Revision plan at Eli for CR#3

Day 3: Reading or Activity TBA!

Due Friday at 11:45 PM: CR#3 to Blackboard (for me) and Wiki (for all of us)

---

Week 13 (April 29; May 1 and 3)

• Due Friday at 11:59:59 –> REVISIONS of CR #1 OR #2 (Submit to Appropriate Space on Bb)
• Due Friday at 11:59:59 –> Any OPTIONAL Additional CR Revisions (See Assignment)

Day 1: Some Beat Writers: Allen Ginsberg: “A Supermarket in California,” “Howl,” “America”; Jack Kerouac: “The Vanishing American Hobo”

Day 2: John Barth: “Lost in the Funhouse” (@Bb)

Day 3: Joyce Carol Oates: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”

Due Friday at 11:59:59 –> REVISIONS of CR #1 OR #2 (Submit to Appropriate Space on Bb) + Any OPTIONAL Additional CR Revisions (See Assignment)

---

Week 14 (May 6, 8, and 10)

• Due Monday @class time: Questions and Comments, Part 2. That’s *it* for required questions and comments, though I hope you’ll keep this as a habit for all your courses!
• Due Friday at 5:00: Reflective “Meditation” Essay
• Consider connecting with some classmates to talk over the upcoming reflective essay!

Day 1: Edwidge Danticat: “New York Day Women,” “Children of the Sea” (@Bb)

Due Monday @class time: Questions and Comments, Part 2. That’s *it* for required questions and comments, though I hope you’ll keep this as a habit for all your courses!

Day 2: John Okada: from No-No Boy (@Bb); Junot Diaz: “Fiesta, 1980”

Day 3: Sherman Alexie: “Because My Father . . .” (@Bb) + Sandra Cisneros: “Mericans” and “Tepeyec”

Optional: Alexie Movie Clip: “Oral Tradition” (from Smoke Signals, Dir. Alexie)
Optional: Jimi Hendrix playing “The Star Spangled Banner“

Due Friday at 5:00 Moved to Monday!: Reflective “Meditation” Essay

---

Week 15 (May 13 + Exam)

• Tuesday: Final Exam

Day 1: Jess Walter: “Statistical Abstract for My Hometown, Spokane, Washington.” (@Bb) Also available: Walter’s “Addendum” to the original “Statistical Abstract” piece.

Due by Tonight at Midnight (New Deadline): Reflective “Meditation” Essay

Exam #3 of 3: Tuesday, May 14, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

---

---

The Writers We’re Reading, an Overview

(An Uneven and Developing List, with Uneven and Developing Annotations)

• Mark Twain, 1835-1910. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens of Hannibal, Missouri; dropped out of school after 5th grade; Greatest Mustache in American Lit; humorist, satirist, journalist, chronicler of Southern life; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) andThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
• Joel Chandler Harris, 1848-1908. From Georgia, raised by his single, Irish-immigrant mother in the pre-Civil War South; folklorist, journalist, fiction writer; Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880)
• African American Folk Tales: Many sources, collected many ways.
• William Dean Howells, 1837-1920. From Ohio, son of an itinerant newspaper editor; a big name in American literary Realism; longtime editor of the Atlantic Monthly known sometimes as “the Dean of American Letters” for his role in supporting young writers; The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
• Henry James, 1843-1916. Important Realist trans-Atlantic novelist brother to William James, an import figure in the history of psychology; raise among the wealthy, educated, urbane, and cosmopolitan; sometimes seen as a link between American Realism and Modernism; kind of a “regionalist” writer for and of very wealthy Americans living abroad; ambiguous (mysterious?) sexuality; Daisy Miller (1878), The Portrait of Lady (1880-81), “The Art of Fiction” (1888).
• Charles Waddell Chesnutt, 1858-1932. African American activist and writer of clever and closely observed realist fictions, born to free parents in North Carolina.
• Hamlin Garland, 1860-1940. Writer and memoirist especially of the Middle West farms and frontier homesteads. Realist, with a political bent.
• Stephen Crane, 1871-1900. New Jersey born. Lots of scandal and adventure-seeking in the short, productive life of Crane, who wrote Realist fictions with a Naturalist bent, produced some dark and cynical poems, committed some journalism, and occasionally married (probably?) a brothel owner or survived the sinking of a boat bound for Cuba with munitions for rebels.
• Jack London, 1876-1916. Prolific California writer and activist most famous for White Fang, where the wild dog gets tame, and Call of the Wild, where the tame dog gets wild. Kind of a working class Jack (heh) of all trades on the way to his writing career.
• Frank Norris, 1870-1902. Journalist and writer of Realist/Naturalist fictions. Chicago born. Lots of grim characters and moments in his work, among which the most famous is McTeague, which features an unlicensed frontier dentist. Ouch.
• Mary Wilkins Freeman, 1852-1930. Prolific and successful writer of realist stories of New England. Freeman supported herself through her writing, and she wove feminist ideas throughout her work.
• Sarah Orne Jewett, 1849-1909. Her work is deeply invested in the people and landscapes of New England. Wonderfully observed stories of small town men and women, often deeply imbued with symbolism.
• Kate Chopin, 1850-1904. Missouri-born writer of fictions about Louisiana and Louisiana Creole communities. Wove issues of race and feminism into her work, which was mostly done over approximately one astounding decade.
• Alice Dunbar Nelson, 1875-1935. African American poet, journalist, and activist born in New Orleans (as part of a multiracial Creole family) and then very much part of the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s. We’re reading a couple of her short, poetic sketches of life in New Orleans.
• Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915. African American educator and author, born to slavery, founding leader of the Tuskegee Institute (a historically black college), and a prominent African American voice of his time.
• Langston Hughes, 1901-1967. African American poet, writer, and activist, closely linked with Jazz and the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
• Jean Toomer, 1894-1967. African-American writer. Grandchild of the 1st African American Governor in the US, with an Immensely Complicated Family Background.
• W.E.B. Dubois, 1868-1963. Prominent African-American thinker, writer, activist, and sociologist who, as a voice of the next generation, challenged Booker T. Washington and was among the founders of the NAACP.
• Zora Neale Hurston, 1891-1960. African-American writer and anthropologist, figure of the Harlem Renaissance and author of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
• Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala Sa), 1876-1938. Sioux writer, musician, educator, and activist born in South Dakota, educated in Quaker schools, with a lot to say about that experience. “Zitkala Sa” is Lakota for Red Bird/Cardinal.
• Winnifred Eaton (Onoto Watanna), 1875-1954. Child an English father and a Chinese mother, sister to Edith Maude Eaton (Sui Sin Far), explored her own multicultural experience in part by inventing a Japanese-sounding pen name and writing about Japan–a country she never visited.
• Edith Maude Eaton (Sui Sin Far), 1865-1914. Child an English father and a Chinese mother, sister to Winnifred Eaton (Sui Sin Far), explored her “Eurasian” identity via essays and stories, reported on Chinese-American life and communities.
• Edith Wharton, 1862-1937. Major American novelist, born to wealth in New York City and often focused on “Gilded Age” American life; a Realist writer with, like her friend Henry James, a great interest in the psychological.
• Ezra Pound, 1885-1972. Extremely influential Modernist writer, whose promotion of and writing about his own work and that of his friends (such as HD and Eliot) did a great deal to define and promote the turn to Modernism. A great deal of controversy attached to Pound during his life, and he brought it on himself. Founder of the Imagist and Vorticist movements.
• H.D., 1886-1961. Her given name is Hilda Doolittle, but we use the pen name, as she did, when we speak of her writing. Friend of Ezra Pound and Sigmund Freud whose poetry is considered exemplary of Modernism and Imagism and whose work explores sexuality in challenging ways.
• T.S. Elliot, 1888-1965. Born in Missouri but moved to England as a young adult and eventually became a British citizen. He won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry. He and Ezra Pound were close friends, and Pound encouraged him to keep writing.
• Carl Sandberg, 1878-1967. Lived mostly in the Midwest and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP. His poetry mainly focused on Chicago, where he spent a majority of his adult life. He also wrote a multivolume biography on Abraham Lincoln that won a Pulitzer Prize.
• Sherwood Anderson, 1876-1941. Originally a business owner in Ohio, he suffered from a nervous breakdown and became an author (as one does). His career started with his short story collection, Winesburg, Ohio, which vividly and sympathetically depicts small town Midwestern lives of the time. Through his psychological intensity and rich, compact storytelling, among other things, he became a major influence on Modernist writers and poets who followed him.
• Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961. Spent lots of time in Paris socializing with expatriate poets and authors, including James Joyce and Ezra Pound. Many of his works were influenced by his time in wars as an ambulance driver and a journalist; like many young men of his time, he thought a lot about what happens in war at the moment when one must act, right now, to survive. The Old Man and the Sea won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Gertrude Stein, 1874-1946. Art collector and novelist who wrote about queer experiences and experimented with stream-of-consciousness writing. As a Jew ish woman living in Nazi-occupied France, she had a very complicated relationship with Nazi regimes. Her salon in France attracted many talented artists like Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso.
• William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963. Both his parents—from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico—spoke Spanish in their New Jersey home, and their Caribbean influence intertwined with American culture. His main job was as a family doctor and his writing was Modernist and Imagistic.
• Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955. Poet, lawyer, and insurance executive influenced by Nietzsche and his time spent in Key West, Florida. While in Key West, he got into fights with Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway, of course. His Collected Poems won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
• Edgar Lee Masters, 1868-1950. Also a lawyer, he published his earliest works under the pseudonym Dexter Wallace. He published poetry, plays, novels, and biographies. Spoon River Anthology, his most famous work, is a series of poems about small town people.
• Robert Frost, 1874-1963. Winner of four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, he wrote mainly about rural life and wrestled with social and philosophical themes. He showed great knowledge of the human experience using colloquial speech. In 1960, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his poetic works and was named poet laureate of Vermont in 1961.
• William Faulkner, 1897-1962. Spent the majority of his life in Lafayette County, Mississippi. His most known works are set in a fictional county based on Lafayette County. One of the great Southern writers.
• Eudora Welty, 1909-2001. American Southern author who embraced a fairy-tale style of writing. Her success allowed her to be a resident lecturer at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. She also had a photography career.
• Flannery O’Connor, 1925-1964. Roman Catholic author who lived in Georgia. She wrote about violent situations and flawed characters in the Southern Gothic style. She called her grotesque stories realistic.
• Alice Walker, 1944-Present. African American writer, civil rights activist, “womanist,” and pacifist, who draws on Zora Neale Hurston. Her most famous novel is The Color Purple, which has been made into a movie and a Broadway musical.
• James Baldwin, 1924-1987. Moved from New York to Paris at age 24 to escape the intense racism, and only returned to New York after hearing of the growing Civil Rights movement. Many of his novels features African American, queer men who are searching for acceptance.
• Allen Ginsberg, 1926-1997. Inspired by Walt Whitman at a young age, he often talked about taboo subjects and travelled to communist countries to promote free speech. He was good friends with Jack Kerouac and helped the Beat poets gain national attention.
• Jack Kerouac, 1922-1969. Pioneer of the Beat Generation, and heavily influenced by jazz and James Joyce. His literary works influenced Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and others in 1960s music and art.
• John Barth, 1930-2024. Postmodernist and metafictional, his writing deals with controversial topics in an experimental way. He also writes essays about the theoretical problems of fiction writing and discusses “the death of the novel.”
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Edwidge Danticat
• John Okada
• Junot Diaz
• Sherman Alexie
• Sandra Cisneros
• Jess Walter

---

Composed and Maintained by Fred Johnson.