Graduate Liberal Studies

Wesleyan University
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HUMS 630
Contemporary Historical Fiction

Charles Baraw

Required Course Work

4-5 p.p. critical paper (close-reading of one novel)
4-5 p.p. creative rewrite of a historical narrative
10-15 p.p. critical paper
Texts

Toni Morrison, Beloved, (Vintage) ISBN-13: 978-1400033416 

Toni Morrison, A Mercy (Knopf) ISBN-13: 978-0307264237 

Stephen Wright, The Amalgamation Polka (Vintage) ISBN-13: 978-0679772941 

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, (Vintage) ISBN-13: 978-0679728757 

Don Delillo, Libra, (Penguin) ISBN-13: 978-0140127119 

Philip Roth, American Pastoral (Vintage) ISBN-13: 978-0375701429 

Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (Vintage) ISBN-13: 978-1400079490 

Russell Banks, The Cloudsplitter, (Harper Perennial) ISBN-13: 978-0060930868
Course Schedule
Week 1

Slave Narratives & Fictions of Slavery

Tuesday                   
Eliza's Flight; or, How Toni Morrison Makes History in Beloved.                       
Source Materials from Uncle Tom's Cabin and slave narratives.

Thursday
De-centering the neo-slave narrative, Morrison's A Mercy
Week 2

Cormac McCarthy's Anti-History of the West

Tuesday
Blood Meridian  (1985)
Critical Essay: Slotkin, "Regeneration Through Violence" (selection).

Thursday
Blood Meridian
Source Materials:  Samuel Chamberlain, My Confessions: Recollections of a Rogue.
Critical Essay: Philips, "History and the Ugly Facts of Blood Meridian."
Due: 4-5 p.p. creative rewrite of a historical narrative.
Week 3

Antebellum History in the 21st Century Novel

Tuesday
Stephen Wright, The Amalgamation Polka                       
Excerpts from Going Native (Wright's previous novel)
Source Materials:  Lithographs, "Amalgamation Polka"                       
Due: 4-5 p.p. critical paper (close-reading of one novel)

Thursday
Stephen Wright, The Amalgamation Polka
Source Materials: 19th-century discussions of "amalgamation"
Week 4

Twentieth-Century History in the Post-Modern Novel

Tuesday                   
Don Delillo, Libra                       
Source Material: selections from the "Warren Report" 

Thursday                  
Don Delillo, Libra
Week 5

Making (Alternative) History in The Novel.

Tuesday               
Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Thursday                   
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America                       
Due: 10-15 p.p. critical paper.