On three ways I hope digital resources can contribute to my American
literature survey sections this spring.
In one of my September
2012 “Fall Forward” posts, I wrote about my plans to bring digital
resources more fully into some of my core American lit syllabi. I didn’t
exactly get to that work this fall, but I’m most definitely still hoping to add
such digital materials to my two sections of American Literature II (Civil War
to the present) this spring. For example, our first long reading in the course
is Mark
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1885), and it’s long past time I made better use of all the relevant materials
on my Dad’s Mark Twain in His Times
website. I envision starting each of our four discussions of the novel with a
particular text or context from the site—one of Kemble’s
illustrations, one of Twain’s influences,
a contemporary review
of the novel—and using it to help provide some jumping off points for the
students’ own takes on the novel and these related questions. As long as I make
clear to the students that such contextual materials don’t have “right”
interpretations any more than the primary text does, I think it should give
them additional ways in to reading and analyzing Twain’s novel.
The Twain site is an obvious, specific digital resource for that novel, but
I’m also hoping to bring in more parallel but equally relevant historical and
cultural materials for other readings. For example, our second long reading is Charles
Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition
(1901), and I’m planning for the third day of discussions—the one focused on
the section of the novel dedicated to the near-lynching of
an innocent African American servant—to ask the students to spend some time
examining the pictures and artifacts collected at the amazing Without
Sanctuary site. Again, I don’t
think there are definite interpretations or answers that we can or should take
away from either that site or Chesnutt’s portrayal of lynching—but I’ll be very
interested to hear what the students notice and think, and I can’t imagine that
our conversation about the
issue and the novel won’t be enriched by putting Chesnutt’s story side by
side with this unparalleled archive and resource.
Then there are
my more open-ended and (so far) undefined digital plans and hopes. Our third
and fourth long readings, Nella
Larsen’s linked novellas Quicksand and
Passing (1928 and 1929) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby (1925), are each set in and centrally defined by their
Roaring ‘20s worlds. (Quicksand
somewhat less so, as its
protagonist Helga travels to many locations; but 1920s Harlem is the only
place to which she returns in the novella.) I imagine my students, like most Americans,
will have some sense of that period and world; but I’d love for us to use
digital resources to help reconnect more fully with the era’s details and
environment. But what would that mean, exactly? Recordings
and contextual materials for 1920s jazz artists? Various
material culture artifacts and other primary sources from the Harlem
Renaissance? Clips from
Hollywood films, newsreels, and other materials from the decade? Those all
seem possible, but there’s only so much time and space, and only so much I can
ask my students to look at (particularly in addition to our readings). So I’m
still thinking about this one for sure—and would love to hear your takes,
suggestions, or perspectives!
That goes for
all of this, of course—and all week! Next spring hopes tomorrow,
Ben
PS. So what do
you think? Thoughts on this course and these connections? Other hopes for the
spring you’d share?
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