Mar 28, 2024  
Catalogue 2019-2020 
    
Catalogue 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)

ENGL 388 - True Crime and the American Novel

Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 388 ) This intensive would be offered to eight students of ENGL 329 American Literary Realism , where the relationship between journalism and literature is a constant feature. Most of the writers on the syllabus were either journalists, before they became novelists, or wrote for or edited magazines throughout their lives. Literary naturalism, a sub-genre of realism, eschews literary devices and stylistic preciosity, instead describing characters and events in the direct, unembellished prose of the newspaper account. From Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition (inspired by the Wilmington, NC race riot of 1898) to Frank Norris’s Mcteague (inspired by the murder of a charwoman) to Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier (inspired by Charles Yerkes financial chicanery) to Richard Wright’s Native Son (inspired by newspaper accounts of a murder) the American novel has relied on ‘real events’ to generate ideas for character and plots. Students may conduct research into the events inspiring these and other novels for the course and present their findings to the group (signed up for the intensive). In addition, students may choose a crime from any period or region (be it Lizzy Borden’s alleged murder of her parents, Jack the Ripper’s murders, serial killers, political assassinations, the murder of Emmett Till) and locate and compare multiple representations of the event (whether in novels, plays, movies, comics, newspapers, trials, forensic science). In most instances, representations highlight historical, class, and racial tensions (or obliviousness) over the subject and even who has a right to speak for the victim. (The recent controversy over the Whitney museum’s exhibition of Dana Schutz’s depiction of the open casket funeral of Emmett Till is a good example. Schutz is a white artist and her detractors objected to her appropriation of an iconic black figure and potentially profiting from her work.)  Students are not limited to 19th century crimes or media for their final projects. The recent Kavanaugh hearings raise questions about the extrapolation of the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty beyond the courtroom. What should be the status of hearsay or personal testimony in determining ‘the truth’ of allegations? I see this as fertile ground for projects with a women’s studies slant. Wendy Graham.

Prerequisite(s): For juniors and seniors and with permission of the instructor.

Second six-week course.

Course Format: INT



Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)