Upcoming Page Readings for God's Little Acre

Here are the page numbers for our upcoming reading of God's Little Acre.

February 1 Erskine Caldwell, God’s Little Acre (1-54)

February 3 God’s Little Acre (55-107)

February 5 God’s Little Acre (107-157)

February 8 God’s Little Acre (157-end)

And check out the trailer for the movie version on YouTube here.

Comments on As I Lay Dying

Dear class,

Please use the comments section below to post on ANY aspect of As I Lay Dying that is of interest to you. Please also continue reading--I realized that I forgot to list page numbers on the syllabus for the reading tomorrow, so please read what is assigned for Wednesday--we'll certainly be discussing Addie's section in class tomorrow.

Here are some questions you might want to think about:

1. Which are the most intelligent and sympathetic voices in the novel? With whom do you most and least identify? Why?

2. Why is Addie’s narrative placed where it is, and what is the effect of hearing Addie’s voice at this point in the book? How do the issues raised by Addie here relate to the book as a whole?

3. We've talked a lot about Darl in class, but what exactly makes Darl different from the other characters? Why is he able to describe Addie’s death when he is not present? How is he able to know intuitively the fact of Dewey Dell’s pregnancy?

5. How does Anse manage to command the obedience and cooperation of his children? (Does he?) What do you make of him?

7. Jewel is the result of Addie’s affair with the evangelical preacher Whitfield. When we read Whitfield’s section, we realize that Addie has again allied herself with a man who is not her equal. How would you characterize the preacher? What is the meaning of this passionate alliance, now repudiated by Whitfield? Does Jewel know who his father is?

8. In what ways does the novel show characters wrestling with ideas of identity and embodiment?

Resources on the Great Depression

General background on the Great Depression (via UIllinois' awesome Modern American Poetry site): click here. This site is great not only for its historical overviews, but for its links to the photography and artwork of the era.

We listened to a few clips from Studs Terkel's remarkable oral history of the Great Depression entitled Hard Times. Click here to read more about the book and listen to audio MP3s of the recordings he made. Read more about Terkel and his incredible work here.

Finally, check out this incredible timeline of the New Deal here and a more general timeline of the 1930s here.

William Faulkner on the Web

Here are some great web resources to add to your reading of Faulkner:

William Faulkner on the Web (run by Ole Miss): www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html

(I can't seem to get this link to connect: just try Googling "William Faulkner on the Web.")

You might find the Glossary especially useful. It collects people, places, and events important to Faulkner's work:www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/glossary.html

The Mississippi Writers Page:

www.olemiss.edu/mwp

(Check out this site's gallery of photos--the link is on the left hand side.)

The University of Virginia Libraries also display a small sampling of their collection of Faulkner items online atwww.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/most/Most_Faulknerian.html

Welcome to the Class Blog for English 3843/5803

This course will study American literature and culture during the Great Depression (1929-1939), focusing on how art responded to this extraordinary period of acute class and race consciousness, and examining the responses of the American people and their leaders to modernity’s apparent collapse. We will read and analyze a variety of types of responses to the crisis: historical documents, first-person narratives, photographs, fiction, memoirs, and movies, paying particular attention to the art that emerged from public arts programs funded through the patronage of FDR and the New Deal. We will also consider how the controversies of the 1930s continue to have an afterlife in contemporary life.

Please use the comment space below to introduce yourself to the class!