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Readings

The writers whose work we will read will include Alice Walker, Minnie Bruce Pratt, James Baldwin, Adrienne Rich, N. Scott Momaday, Richard Rodriguez, Louise Erdrich, bell hooks, June Jordan, Margaret Atwood, Audre Lorde, Nancy Mairs, Paula Gunn Allen, Cynthia Ozick, Gerald Early, John Updike, and Diana Hume George, among others.

One of the primary texts for our course will be the essays all of you write and what all of us have to say about your essays in workshops. These workshops, in which we will respond to and learn from the writing done by everyone in the class, will occupy much of our class time. Your purpose in the workshops will be to support each other’s work in progress by offering careful, thoughtful, and serious responses as readers, pointing out what you see as the writer’s successes and offering constructive suggestions for improving the work. The essays you submit to the workshops will be understood to be work in progress; you will use the responses of readers (including me) to revise, refine, and polish your work before submitting a final version.

I encourage you to bring to class articles, editorials, news items, etc., on issues of interest to you or relevant to the writing you or others in the class are doing and to share them with the class as a supplement to assigned reading.

Readings by Session

Course readings.

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Discussion: "Zane Grey on a Carousel in Indian Territory"	George, Diana Hume. "Zane Grey on a Carousel in Indian Territory." Creative Nonfiction 22 (2004): 62-73. Dillard, Annie. "Introduction: Notes for Young Writers." In In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. No 24 and 25. Edited by Lee Gutkind. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2004, pp. xi-xvii. ISBN: 9780393326659. Menand, Louis. "Introduction: Voices." In Best American Essays 2004. Edited by Louis Menand. Series edited by Robert Atwan. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, pp. xiv-xviii. ISBN: 9780618357093.
2	Discussion: "Identity: Skin, Blood, Heart"	Pratt, Minnie Bruce. "Identity: Skin, Blood, Heart." In Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism. Edited by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1988, pp. 11-63. ISBN: 9780932379535.
3	Attend One of the Talks at the MIT Women's Studies 20th Anniversary Symposium
4	Discussion: "Notes of a Native Son"	Baldwin, James. "Notes of a Native Son." In The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. New York, NY: St. Martin's/Marek, 1985, pp. 127-145. ISBN: 9780312643065.
5	Discussion: "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision" "Gender in a Time of Holy War: Fundamentalist Femiphobia and Post-9/11 Masculinity"	Rich, Adrienne. "We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision." In On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1995, pp. 33-49. ISBN: 9780393312850. Ducat, Stephen J. "Gender in a Time of Holy War: Fundamentalist Femiphobia and Post-9/11 Masculinity." In The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004, pp. 208-245. ISBN: 9780807043448.
6	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 5
7	Discussion: Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Excerpts)	Rodriguez, Richard. "The Third Man." Chapter 6 in Brown: The Last Discovery of America. Excerpts. New York, NY: Viking, 2002, Preface, pp. xi-xv and pp. 125-143. ISBN: 9780670030439.
8	Discussion: "Notes on My Mother" "Reflections on Race and Sex"	Als, Hilton. "Notes on My Mother." In The Best American Essays 1997. Edited by Ian Frazier. Series edited by Robert Atwan. Mariner Books, 1997, pp. 1-9. ISBN: 9780395856956.  Hooks, Bell. "Reflections on Race and Sex." In Daughters of the Revolution: Classic Essays by Women. Edited by James D. Lester. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Publishing Group, 1996, pp. 193-201. ISBN: 9780844258812.
9	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 8
10	Discussion: "On Seeing England for the First Time" "Wounded Chevy at Wounded Knee" "Mother Tongue"	Kincaid, Jamaica. "On Seeing England for the First Time." In Best American Essays 1992. Edited by Susan Sontag. Series edited by Robert Atwan. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1992, pp. 209-220. ISBN: 9780395599365. George, Diana Hume. "Wounded Chevy at Wounded Knee." In Daughters of the Revolution: Classic Essays by Women. Edited by James D. Lester. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Publishing Group, 1996, pp. 174-188. ISBN: 9780844258812. Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." In The Contemporary Essay. Edited by Donald Hall. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford St. Martin's, 1994, pp. 529-534. ISBN: 9780312101381.
11	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 10
12	Silent Reading Session
13	Discussion: "Nothing Personal" "On Being the Object of Property" "Text and Context: The Essay and the Politics of Disjunctive Form"	Baldwin, James. "Nothing Personal." In The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. New York, NY: St. Martin's/Marek, 1985, pp. 381-393. ISBN: 9780312643065. Williams, Patricia J. "On Being the Object of Property." In The Beacon Book of Essays by Contemporary American Women. Edited by Wendy Martin. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996, pp. 171-180. ISBN: 9780807063460. Faery, Rebecca Blevins. "Text and Context: The Essay and the Politics of Disjunctive Form." In What Do I Know?: Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Essay. Edited by Janis Forman. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 1995, pp. 55-67. ISBN: 9780867093704.
14	Discussion: "Whose War" "Father Stories" "Looking at Emmett Till"	Wideman, John Edgar. "Whose War." In Best American Essays 2003. Edited by Anne Fadiman. Series edited by Robert Atwan. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, pp. 320-328. ISBN: 9780618341610. ———. "Father Stories." In Best American Essays 1995. Edited by Jamaica Kincaid. Series edited by Robert Atwan. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1995, pp. 205-215. ISBN: 9780395691830. ———. "Looking at Emmett Till." In In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. Edited by Lee Gutkind. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2004, pp. 24-48. ISBN: 9780393326659.
15	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 14
16	Discussion: "My House" "Where I Lived and What I Lived For"	Thoreau, Henry David. "My House," and "Where I Lived and What I Lived For." In In Depth: Essayists for Our Time. Edited by Carl Klaus, and Chris Anderson. 2nd ed. Heinle, 1993, pp. 605-622. ISBN: 9780155001725.
17	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 16
18	Discussion: "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli" "Prisoner of the Wired World" "Quitting the Paint Factory"	Gopnik, Adam. "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli." The New Yorker. September 30, 2002, 80-84. Lightman, Alan. "Prisoner of the Wired World." In A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2005, pp. 183-208. ISBN: 9780375423208. Slouka, Mark. "Quitting the Paint Factory." Harper's Magazine, November 2004, 57-65.
19	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session18
20	Class Workshop of Essays Submitted on Session 19
21	Discussion: "Essayists on the Essay"	Klaus, Carl. "Essayists on the Essay." In Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy. Edited by Chris Anderson. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989, pp. 155-175. ISBN: 9780809314058.
22	Oral Presentations: "A Modest Proposal and The Satirical Essay" "The Travel Essay" Discussion: "Cat People"	Jonathan Swift. A Modest Proposal [Download A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, a version of this text from Project Gutenberg.] and The Satirical Essay. The Travel Essay. Menand, Louis. "Cat People." The New Yorker, December 23 and 30, 2002, 148-154.
23	Oral Presentations: "Self-Reliance" "The Female Chromosome"	Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance. [Download a version of Self-Reliance from emersoncentral.com] Angier, Natalie. "Understanding the Female Chromosome." In Woman: An Intimate Geography. Natalie Angier. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. ISBN: 9780395691304.
24	Discussion: "Learning to Drive" "Here Be Dragons"	Pollitt, Katha. "Learning to Drive." The New Yorker, July 22, 2002, 36-40. Baldwin, James. "Here Be Dragons." In The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. New York, NY: St. Martin's/Marek, 1985, pp. 677-690. ISBN: 9780312643065.
25	Last Class Meeting: Tea and Celebratory Reading at Rebecca's