Professor Michelle H.

Raheja
Department of English
English 20B

Intro to American Literary Tradition:

Death and Violence
Winter Quarter 2016
Class Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2:10-3:30pm
Class Location: INTN 1020
Office hours: Thursdays 9:00am-12:00pm
Office location: HMNSS 2006
Email: michelle.raheja@ucr.edu
Teaching Assistants and Discussion Sections
Daniel Ante-Contreras
Office hours: Tuesdays 3:30-4:30pm and Wednesdays 9:00am-10:00am, 2:00pm-3:00pm
Office location: HMNSS 2004
Email: dante001@ucr.edu
Discussion sections: 24, 25, 26
Hannah Manshel
Office hours: Tuesdays 11:30-1:30pm and Thursdays 12:00pm-1:00pm
Office location: HMNSS 2306
Email: hmans002@ucr.edu
Discussion sections: 27, 28, 29
Raymond Rim
Office hours: Thursdays, 1:00-2:00pm and 3:30-5:30pm
Office location: HMNSS 2004
Email: hrim001@ucr.edu
Discussion sections: 33, 34, 35
Danny Valencia
Office hours: Thursdays 1:00-2:00pm, and 3:30-5:30pm
Office location: HMNSS 2300
Email: dvale007@ucr.edu
Discussion sections: 30, 31, 32

Figure 1: Nova Reperta (New Inventions of Modern Times)/America). Print made by Theodor de Galle after Jan van
der Straet, Antwerp, c. 1588-1612

The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a
more violent world.
--Hannah Arendt, Reflections on Violence
The settler-native relationship is a mass relationship. The settler pits brute force against the
weight of numbers. He is an exhibitionist. His preoccupation with security makes him remind the
native out loud that there he alone is master. The settler keeps alive in the native an anger which
he deprives of outlet; the native is trapped in the tight links of the chains of colonialism. But we
have seen that inwardly the settler can only achieve a pseudo petrification. The natives muscular
tension finds outlet regularly in bloodthirsty explosionsin tribal warfare, in feuds between septs,
and in quarrels between individuals.
A colonized people is not alone. In spite of all that colonialism can do, its frontiers remain open
to new ideas and echoes from the world outside. It discovers that violence is in the atmosphere,
that it here and there bursts out, and here and there sweeps away the colonial regime that same
violence which fulfills for the native a role that is not simply informatory, but also operative.
--Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence
In American mythogenesis the founding fathers were not those eighteenth-century gentlemen who
composed a nation at Philadelphia. Rather, they were those who tore violently a nation from
implacable and opulent wilderness Regeneration ultimately became the means of violence, and
the myth of regeneration through violence became the structuring metaphor of the American
experience.
--Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of
the American Frontier, 1600-1860
But you have there the myth of the essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, the
democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard,
isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.
--D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

I say that tribal literatures are not some branch waiting to be grafted onto the main trunk. Tribal
literatures are the tree, the oldest literatures in the Americas, the most American of American
literatures. We are the canon Without Native American literature, there is no American canon.
We should not allow ourselves, through the definitions we choose and the language we use, to
ever assume we are outside the canon; we should not play along and confess to being a secondrate literature.
--Craig Womack, Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism
Course Description
The course catalog description of English 20B reads as follows: Introduces American literature
from its beginnings, with attention to historical and cultural contexts. The literature of what is
now known as the Americas begins, as is the case on any inhabited continent, tens of thousands of
years ago and continues to the present. It comprises a dizzying number of genres, including
wampum belts, oral narrative, poetry, autobiography, and fiction, as well as a dizzying number of
historical and cultural contexts, including African American, Arab American, Asian American,
Chicana/o, European American, and Native American literary traditions. What this class can
offer you, over the course of the next ten weeks, is a speed dating kind of introduction to
American literature and culture with the hopes that youll meet a text, genre, or context that
inspires you to read more deeply within the field and with which youd like to spend the rest of
your life.
Rather than moving through a random greatest hits assortment of texts in more or less
chronological order, this course will focus on the most fundamental, foundational, and enduring
theme in American literature: death and violence. Arguably, all literary, artistic, and cultural
production since the beginning of recorded time has dealt, in one way or another with death,
violence, and our fears of death. Fears of death and representations of violence continue to be the
most critical themes in American literature, more so than the myths of the self-made man, the
American Dream, and the fantasy of American Exceptionalism. Or, perhaps more accurately,
violence brought, and continues to bring, these ideas into being in the American imaginary.
While death and violence were and continue to be enacted on the land and on classed, gendered
and racialized bodies, this course will be more concerned with discursive death and violence, or
the ways in which language (and images) undergirds, represents, enacts, remembers, and permits
violence against the land and class, gendered and racialized bodies in the Americas. This course
examines the complex and ongoing relationship between writing; literature; the body; death and
its narrative impossibility; violence; race; and gender through close attention to a number of
representative literary and cultural texts.
The issues raised over the course of the quarter may be unfamiliar to you and may spark
discussion about controversial subjects as the texts focus on representations of racialized peoples,
colonization, gender, sexuality, and violence. Therefore, it is expected that as a class we will
sometimes disagree about the material. This should be interpreted as a positive and exciting
classroom experience, one designed to hone your critical and rhetorical skills, not a negative one.
As a class, we will collectively confront and grapple with difficult material in order to develop an
intellectual community that is able to respectfully and productively debate these important and
still pertinent issues. Although I feel ambivalent about the politics and practice of trigger
warnings, there is some content on this syllabus that some might find difficult to read, watch,
and/or discuss. Please dont hesitate to contact me or your TA at any time over the course of the
quarter if you have any questions or concerns. If you are in crisis, please contact Counseling and
Psychological Services at http://counseling.ucr.edu or call 911. For more general mental health,

well-being, and stress remediation information and programs, please visit The Well at
http://well.ucr.edu.
Course Objectives:
1) To introduce a number of texts and contexts that are constitutive of the intersections between
death, violence and American literature and culture; 2) To provide the skills necessary to critically
engage literary and cultural texts in a wide variety of different contexts and historical periods; 3)
To find entry points into literature, particularly early American literature, that can often be
difficult to access due to historical context, unfamiliar content, and cultural difference; 4) To
analyze the mechanisms of representation at play in literary texts; 5) To define and analyze
discursive violence; 6) To link death, violence and representation historically; 7) To analyze the
role the state plays in the production of bodies and identity through deadly and violent acts as
represented in literary and cultural texts; 8) To collectively reconsider key literary and cultural
studies terms as they relate to long arc of American literary history, such as canon, aesthetics,
value, genre, tradition, authenticity, and verisimilitude.
Course Requirements
1) Pop Quizzes: Pop quizzes will be intermittently given over the course of the quarter in class
and cannot be made up (10%)
2) Two short papers: You will complete two five-page close reading essays. The first is due on
Tuesday, January 26 and the second on Tuesday, February 23. These close reading papers
will engage with texts assigned on the syllabus and will be discussed in greater detail in class.
First essay: This five-page essay is a consideration of death and violence in American
literature. You will put a personal anecdote about death and/or violence (for example, a
memory of a funeral you attended, a scene of death or violence in a text youve read, a recent
news story about death and/or violence) into conversation with one of the texts assigned from
Weeks 1-4. Some questions to consider: How has the material on the syllabus impacted the
way in which you think about your personal anecdote about death and/or violence? How
would you compare aspects of memory as they pertain to your personal anecdote to the ways
memory functions in the work youve examined so far in class? While this essay is, in part,
an act of the imagination, you will also need to interact deeply with the text, drawing from it
in order to perform a close reading and engaged analysis. You will be graded on your thesis,
clarity of your writing, content, organization, and analysis (15%)
Second essay: In this five-page research paper, you will provide a close reading of an
assigned text from Weeks 4-8 in order to examine how violence is represented, read and
remembered in American literary history. Your essay will critically engage with a brief
excerpt from the texta stanza, a scene, a paragraph, an imageand use an academic
secondary source (a journal article or book chapter written by a scholar in the field) to bolster
and develop your claims about the passage (15%)
3) Participation in Discussion Section: You will each receive a grade for your participation in
your TA-led discussion section. Active participation in these section meetings is mandatory
and active participation in lecture discussion is highly encouraged. These section meetings

will constitute a kind of lab that will supplement class lectures and delve more deeply into
the material (25%)
4) Ethnographic Field Trip: You will be required to visit the Bass Pro Shop store in Rancho
Cucamonga (7777 Victoria Gardens Lane) one time over the course of the quarter and write a
two to five page, detailed report of your experience there. While you are there, consider the
types of displays that are featured; the kinds of activities and classes that are offered; the
aesthetic design of the store; the demographics of the shoppers; and the specific types of
marketing various brands use for their products through the scope of the two primary themes
of this class: death and violence. Due Thursday, March 11 (10%)
5) Final Exam: An in-class final short answer, identification, and essay exam will be
administered on March 14 from 8am-11am. A more detailed prompt will be given in class
(25%)
Classroom Protocol, Policies, & Information
Absenteeism: Attendance is mandatory and important. Attendance will be taken and if you miss
more than three classes, your final grade may suffer. Coursework for other classes or job
requirements are not considered legitimate reasons for absence.
Academic Resources Center (ARC): Provides peer-led supplemental instruction, tutoring, writing
support, and study skills workshops for students who want to excel in their studies, as well as for
students who are having difficulty in their courses. The reception room for the ARC is located in
Room 156 of the Surge Building. The ARCs website is: www.arc.ucr.edu.
Audio/Video Recording: For a variety of reasons, audio- and videotaping of lectures is not
allowed.
Cellphones: Turn off all cell phones before entering the classroom. If you have children or are
on-call for any reason, set your cell phone to vibrate and leave the classroom to take your call.
This should be a very rare event. Text messaging is not allowed in class.
Classroom Discussion: Active participation in class discussion is very encouraged. Feel free to
agree or disagree with your colleagues, but please do not interrupt or be disrespectful. Refrain
from carrying on private discussions during class. If you have a comment to make, raise your
hand or wait until after class to talk to either a classmate, a TA or the instructor.
Classroom Technology: Computer use during class is for the sole purpose of note taking or
reading classroom materials that have been posted on iLearn. Please do not use this time to send
emails, search the web, play video games, listen to your iPod, or any other purpose. If you are
caught engaging in a non-class related technology activity as described above, you will be asked
to leave the classroom. The TAs will be monitoring your computer use during class and will
report to me if it is found that you are using class time to check emails/text, engage in social
networking, play computer games, etc.
Email: If you want to talk about your work in class, come to office hours. Email is not a venue
for asking basic questions about assignments/readings. This type of information will be posted
on the syllabus and on Blackboard. While I will do my best to respond to all emails, I cannot
guarantee responses to any email. I will, however, make every attempt to respond to thoughtful

email messages concerning the readings and issues raised in class, and to emails that are written
with some attention to decorumaddressed appropriately (to Professor Raheja or Dr. Raheja for
example) and signed with your full name (I cannot guess your identity from your email address).
Also, please be advised that I check my email infrequently and very rarely on weekends. As a
result, it may take me over a week to respond to your inquiry. Therefore, I encourage you to
make an appointment during office hours to discuss the readings and assignments. When my
office hours fill up, I will do my best to hold extra office hours to accommodate all of you.
Extra Credit: You may receive up to three extra points on your second essay grade by attending
extra credit events that will be posted periodically on Blackboard. Some of these events will be
held on campus and some will be held off campus. In order to receive credit for an event, you
will need to submit a one-page description of it (event title, name of speaker(s)/performer(s),
description of event, relationship between event and our class, etc.) at the class meeting
immediately following the event. For example, if you attend an event on Monday, the one-page
description will be due on Tuesday.
Incompletes: Incompletes are inconvenient for both the student and instructor. Work produced
by students after the quarter is completed is rarely as good as the work completed by students
who turn everything in on time. For this reason, NO INCOMPLETES WILL BE ACCEPTED.
Office Hours: Please note that I will be available during office hours and by appointment for
consultation if you have any questions or if youd like more feedback or information on the
course material. I would like to speak with each of you individually at least once over the course
of the quarter during office hours. When you come to office hours to speak with me, please come
with specific questions or concerns. Office hours will be scheduled in fifteen-minute blocks on
Blackboard, so come organized and prepared to discuss a specific question. I will be happy to
assist you in brainstorming about a paper topic or to read work in progress. If you would like to
share an assignment draft with me, please bring a hard copy with you during your appointment
(do not email it to me) and I will do my best to read and respond to it.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism (work borrowed from someone elses ideas, oral presentation, or
published material and submitted as ones own without proper citation) is unacceptable in
academia and not tolerated at UCR. Any case of plagiarism will warrant an F for the course
and will be subject to disciplinary action. See the following for more information on how to
recognize and avoid plagiarizing from someone elses work: http://library.ucr.edu/?
view=help/plagiarism.html
Submitting Assignments: Late papers will be graded down one half letter per day (for example, a
paper that otherwise would have received a B will become a B- if it is one day late).
Tardiness: Do not come to class if you are more than ten minutes late. Students entering the
classroom late distract both the instructor and other students. If you do miss class, copy class
notes from another student after class.
What to Bring to Class: Bring required texts to class or discussion section on the assigned class
period, as well as your notes on the readings. This is mandatory. You may either print out the
text or read it from your computer. You will need to have access to page numbers, as well as the
material. Again, computer use during class is for the sole purpose of note taking and reading
assignments for this class posted on iLearn. Please do not use this time to send emails, search the
web, or play video games as this is both disrespectful to your classmates and to the instructor.

Required Texts
Available on iLearn under Course Materials or on the Internet:
Excerpt from Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
(2014) (iLearn)
Anne Bradstreet, Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666 (iLearn)
Excerpt from Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking [2006] (iLearn)
Sharon Olds, Sheffield Mountain Ode [2015] (iLearn) and listen to Olds read the poem
(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/sheffield-mountain-ode)
Jazz funeral procession for Juanita Brooks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG6KH905cGU)
Dia de los muertos/Day of the Dead (http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3099-mexico-s-day-ofthe-dead-resource-page)
Emily Post, Chapter XXIV Funerals (iLearn; from the 1922 edition of Etiquette); Funeral
Etiquette: At the Service (2015 online edition; http://emilypost.com/advice/funeraletiquette-at-the-service/); and Religious Customs at Funerals (2015 online edition;
http://emilypost.com/advice/religious-customs-at-funerals/)
Excerpt from Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages [1492-1504] (iLearn)
John Winthrop, Reasons to Be Considered for the Intended Plantation in New England
(1629) (iLearn)
Two versions of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Creation Narrative: Major John Norton [1816],
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6375/ and David Cusick [1825], pp. 1-8 only
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=libraryscience
Chief Jake Swamp and Erwin Printup, Jr., Giving Thanks [2002] (iLearn)
Excerpt from Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller [1981] (iLearn)
William Apess, Eulogy on King Philip [1836] (iLearn)
Hisaye Yamamoto, The Legend of Miss Sasagawara [1950] (iLearn)
Alan Taylor, World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans, a photo essay in The Atlantic
(http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/world-war-ii-internment-of-japaneseamericans/100132/)
Simon Ortiz, A Designated National Park [1977] and Canyon De Chelly [1977] (iLearn)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature [1836] (iLearn)
Walt Whitman, Pioneers! Oh Pioneers [1865] (iLearn)
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno [1855] (iLearn)
Thomas Jefferson, selections from Notes on the State of Virgina [1785] (iLearn)
Frederick Douglass, Chapters 1 and X, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
[1845] (iLearn)
Sojourner Truth, Aint I a Woman [1851] (iLearn)
Frances Harper, The Slave Mother [1854] and Learning to Read[1854] (iLearn)
James Baldwin/KQED, Take This Hammer (Parts 1-5) [1963] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=A-x7TP4z3fA&list=PLlS55jv-JClaapADaTH2D_tbgOJLO1i6h)
Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit [1979] (iLearn)
Excerpt from John Underhill, Newes from America [1638] (iLearn)
Walt Whitman, The Wound Dresser [1865] (iLearn)
Jo
Ann
Beard,
The
Fourth
State
of
Matter
[2006]
(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/06/24/the-fourth-state-of-matter)
Joy Harjo, A Postcolonial Tale and Letter from the End of the Twentieth Century [1994]
(iLearn)
Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin [2011] (film)
Excerpt from Elliot Rodger, My Twisted World [2011] (iLearn)
William Carlos Williams, To Elsie [1962] (iLearn)

Heid Erdrich, Some Elsie, Infinite Progression and Elsie Drops Off the Dry Cleaning
[2008] (iLearn)
Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power [1984] (iLearn)
Deborah Miranda, Deer [1999] (iLearn)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper [1892] (iLearn)
Gloria Anzalda, How to Tame a Wild Tongue [1987] (iLearn)
Alia Yunis, Girls on Ice [2011] (https://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/yunis_6_1_11/)
Moiss Kaufman, The Laramie Project [2002] (film)
Amnesty
International,
No
More
Stolen
Sisters
(http://www.amnesty.ca/ourwork/campaigns/no-more-stolen-sisters)
Dorothy Allison, The Women Who Hate Me [2006] (iLearn)
WEEK 1: Death in America I
Tuesday, January 5: Introduction to class
Assignment: For Thursday, read Caitlin Doughty, excerpt Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (iLearn) and
visit her website, The Order of the Good Death (http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com). View
four of her Ask a Mortician videos (under the video tab) and read at least one of her posted
articles (be prepared to list the specific videos and articles in either lecture or in section).
Thursday, January 7: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read Anne Bradstreet, Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10 th,
1666 (iLearn); Joan Didion, excerpt from The Year of Magical Thinking (iLearn); and Sharon
Olds, Sheffield Mountain Ode (iLearn; also listen to Olds read the poem:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/sheffield-mountain-ode)
WEEK 2: Death in America II
Tuesday, January 12: Discussion of readings
Assignment:
For Thursday, view jazz funeral procession for Juanita Brooks
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG6KH905cGU); spend at least five minutes reading about
Dia de los muertos/Day of the Dead (http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3099-mexico-s-day-ofthe-dead-resource-page); and read Emily Post, Chapter XXIV Funerals (iLearn; from the 1922
edition of Etiquette); Funeral Etiquette:
At the Service (2015 online edition;
http://emilypost.com/advice/funeral-etiquette-at-the-service/); and Religious Customs at
Funerals (2015 online edition; http://emilypost.com/advice/religious-customs-at-funerals/
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter for writing a
one-page, single-spaced description of a funeral youve attended by the last day of class.
Thursday, January 14: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, Christopher Columbus, excerpt from The Four Voyages (iLearn) and
John Winthrop, Reasons to Be Considered (iLearn)

WEEK 3: The Colonial Violence of First Contact

Tuesday, January 19: Discussion of readings and in-class screening of Helen Haig-Browns
film, ?E?ANX (The Cave)
Assignment:
For Thursday, read The Iroquois Creation Story (Major John Norton
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6375/
and
David
Cusick,
pp.
1-8
only
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=libraryscience); Chief
Jake Swamp and Erwin Printup, Jr., Giving Thanks (iLearn); and Leslie Marmon Silko, excerpt
from Storyteller (iLearn)
Thursday, January 21: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read William Apess, Eulogy on King Philip (iLearn)
WEEK 4: National Violence I
Tuesday, January 26: **First essay due**, discussion of readings
Assignment: For Thursday, read Hisaye Yamamoto, The Legend of Miss Sasagawara (iLearn);
spend at least fifteen minutes reading about the Manzanar National Historic Site near Lone Pine
(http://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm);
and
view
Alan
Taylors
photo
essay
(http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/world-war-ii-internment-of-japaneseamericans/100132/).
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter for visiting
Manzanar and writing a one-page, single-spaced description of your trip by the last day of class
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter by reading
at least one chapter of Traise Yamamotos Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American
Women, Identity, and the Body and writing a one-page, single-spaced description of it by the last
day of class
Thursday, January 28: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read Simon Ortiz, A Designated National Park and Canyon De
Chelly (iLearn); Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (iLearn); Walt Whitman, Pioneers! Oh
Pioneers (iLearn); and National Parks brochures (go to http://www.nps.gov/index.htm and look
up information on U.S. national parks; spend at least twenty minutes reading the language and
imagery of the national parks brochures carefully and critically, just as you would any other
literary text. Please focus on Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion
National Parks
WEEK 5: National Violence II
Tuesday, February 2: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Thursday, read Herman Melville, Benito Cereno (iLearn)
Thursday, February 4: Guest lecture by Hannah Manshel, discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read Thomas Jefferson, selections from Notes on the State of Virgina
(iLearn); Frederick Douglass, Chapters 1 and X, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American
Slave (iLearn); Sojourner Truth, Aint I a Woman? (iLearn); Frances Harper, The Slave
Mother and Learning to Read (iLearn).

Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter by creating
a two-page time line of African American literature by the last day of class
WEEK 6: Social Death, Violence, Race and Slavery
Tuesday, February 9: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Thursday, view James Baldwin/KQED, Take This Hammer (Parts 1-5)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-x7TP4z3fA&list=PLlS55jvJClaapADaTH2D_tbgOJLO1i6h)
Thursday, February 11: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, spend at least thirty minutes on the Black Lives Matter website
(http://blacklivesmatter.com) and thirty minutes on the National Rifle Association website
(https://home.nra.org).
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter by writing a
one-page, single-spaced critical analysis of reportage on the police killing of Tamir Rice by the
last day of class
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter by writing a
one-page, single-spaced critical analysis of reportage on why the NRA opposes legislation
strengthening gun laws by the last day of class
WEEK 7: Social Death, Violence, Race and Immigration
Tuesday, February 16:
Assignment: For Thursday, read Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit (iLearn)
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over the course of the quarter by creating
a two-page time line of Chicana/o literature by the last day of class
Thursday, February 18: Guest lecture by Daniel Valencia, discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read John Underill, The Attack on Pequot Fort (iLearn); Walt
Whitman, The Wound Dresser (iLearn); Jo Ann Beard, The Fourth State of Matter
(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/06/24/the-fourth-state-of-matter); and Joy Harjo, A
Postcolonial Tale and Letter from the End of the Twentieth Century (iLearn)
WEEK 8: Gunfighter Nation
Tuesday, February 23: Guest lecture by Raymond Rim, **Second essay due,** discussion of
readings
Assignment: For Thursday, view We Need to Talk about Kevin and read excerpt from Elliot
Rodger, My Twisted World (iLearn). Extra credit: you may receive extra credit at any point over
the course of the quarter by reading Lionel Shrivers We Need to Talk about Kevin [2003], the
book on which the film is based, and writing a one-page comparison of the book to the film by
the last day of class.

10

Thursday, February 25: Guest lecture by Daniel Ante Contreras, discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, read William Carlos Williams, To Elsie (iLearn); Heid Erdrich,
Some Elsie, Infinite Progression and Elsie Drops Off the Dry Cleaning (iLearn); Audre
Lorde, The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (iLearn); and Deborah Miranda, Deer
(iLearn).
Extra credit: you may receive extra credit for conducting a gendered analysis of the most popular
20th and 21st century childrens books by submitting a one-page, single-spaced description of your
findings by the last day of class. You may use your own personal anecdotes about childrens and
young adult literature in your description
Extra credit: You may receive extra credit for visiting the A Mighty Girl website
(http://www.amightygirl.com); performing a gender, race, and class analysis of it; and submitting
a one-page description of your findings by the last day of class
WEEK 9: Gender, Death and Violence I
Tuesday, March 1: ***Ethnographic field trip narrative due,*** discussion of readings
Assignment: For Thursday, read Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper (iLearn);
Gloria Anzalda, How to Tame a Wild Tongue (iLearn); and Alia Yunis, Girls on Ice
(https://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/yunis_6_1_11/)
Thursday, March 3: Discussion of readings
Assignment: For Tuesday, view The Laramie Project (film); spend at least minutes reading the
Amnesty
International,
No
More
Stolen
Sisters
(http://www.amnesty.ca/ourwork/campaigns/no-more-stolen-sisters) website; and read Dorothy Allison, The Women Who
Hate Me (iLearn)
WEEK 10: Gender, Death and Violence II
Tuesday, March 8: Discussion of readings
Thursday, March 10: In-class discussion exercise (fun!)

Final Exam: Monday, March 14 from 8am-11am

11