AMST 3750/01 and ENGL 3350/01 and HIST 3304/02

Regional Literature: Georgia Writers/Georgia History

#11178 & 11437 & 10445 – Spring 2007

Instructors: Dr. Dede Yow and Dr. Tom Scott

MW 5:00 – 6:15 – SS 3021

Dr. Yow: Dr. Scott:

Office: English Building 255 SS 4100

Office Hrs: MW 3:00-4:00 MW 3:00-4:00

or by appointment or by appointment

Phone: 770-423-6150 770-423-6254

E-mail: dyow@kennesaw.edu tscott@kennesaw.edu

Books:

Andrews, Raymond. Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennesee. New York: Dial Press, 1980; reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Cobb, James C. Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Doctorow, E. L. The March: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2006.

Grooms, Anthony. Bombingham: A Novel. New York: Free Press, 2001; paperback edition, New York: Ballantine/One World, 2002.

Scott, Thomas A., ed. Cornerstones of Georgia History: Documents That Formed the State. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

The campus bookstore has several copies of a fine textbook, Kenneth Coleman, general editor, A History of Georgia, 2d ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991). It is strictly optional, but you may find it useful as a reference book. Those of you who plan to teach Georgia history probably should own a copy.

University Policy on Academic Misconduct

Academic Honesty: Please refer to policy stated in the current KSU Undergraduate Catalog. See Student Code of Conduct regarding section II Academic Honesty (plagiarism and cheating). It reads as follows: No student shall receive, attempt to receive, knowingly give or attempt to give unauthorized assistance in the preparation of any work required to be submitted for credit as part of a course (including examinations, laboratory reports, essays, themes, term papers, etc.) When direct quotations are used, they should be indicated, and when the ideas, theories, data, figures, graphs, programs, electronic based information or illustrations of someone other than the student are incorporated into a paper or used in a project, they should be duly acknowledged.

Testing and Grading:

The midterm and final exams will consist of a series of ID questions that you can answer in about a page each and a take-home essay topic that you can answer in about five pages, double-spaced, 12 font. Questions often will ask you to express and defend a position. You won’t be graded on your opinions but on how well you defend your arguments with supporting evidence from the readings or other sources.

The grade for Contributions to the Intellectual Community will be determined by your participation in class and especially by your postings on the WebCT Vista Discussions page. Each week we will give you topics, based on the readings to discuss with your classmates. You will be expected to do a minimum of one substantive posting of about 15-20 lines per class. Of course, if you get into the spirit of the discussions, you may want to post more than that.

Weekly quizzes will come at the start of the Wednesday classes, beginning in the second week of the semester. Quizzes will typically consist of questions that call for short written answers. Study guides are provided to help with the reading assignments. If you have an illness or emergency that forces you to miss class, please let us know as soon as possible. We will be happy to excuse an occasional absence. When we calculate the quiz grade at the end of the semester, we will drop your lowest grade before figuring the average.

The grading scale is A = 90-100; B = 80-89; C = 70-79; D = 60-69, and F = 0-59.

The final grade will be determined in the following manner:

Contributions to Intellectual Community: 25 percent

Quizzes: 25 percent

Midterm: 25 percent

Final exam: 25 percent

Total: 100 percent

Course Description:

Students may take this team-taught course for either English or History or American Studies credit. Dr. Yow will grade the work of ENGL 3350 and AMST 3750 students, and Dr. Scott will be responsible for those enrolled in HIST 3304. But all the assignments will be the same, whether you are a history or English student. Dr. Yow and Dr. Scott will lead the class together. Dr. Yow will participate in discussions of historical documents, and Dr. Scott will participate in discussions of works of fiction. The instructors’ goal is to create a seamless product where the two disciplines merge into one. The class will explore the history and literature of a typical southern state. The South has carved a remarkable niche in our national literature, with Georgia producing its share of great writers. We will read works by Georgia’s literary giants, as well as letters, speeches, and other writings of key historical figures.

The instructors operate on the assumption that good literature exists to inspire us, challenge us, and make us think. We believe that history is a branch of literature, and that history has relevance only when it inspires us, challenges us, and makes us think. Facts and dates are the raw material of history, but they aren’t history by themselves. History is what the historian does to interpret and make sense of the raw materials. History is most interesting when we encounter primary sources (documents such as letters, diaries, and speeches left behind by the people closest to a particular event). But just because a document is a primary source doesn’t mean that it tells the whole truth. For example, one person might describe a certain slave master as kind and paternalistic, while another observer could view the same plantation as a training ground in tyranny. A good historian notes the tension and formulates a story that makes sense of the conflicting viewpoints. In Cornerstones of Georgia History you will find a variety of primary documents created by people who disagreed about the great issues of their day. Your goal will be to reach your own understanding of what really happened and what it means to us today.

The best works of fiction and history transcend time and place and have universal meaning. The stories of Flannery O’Connor and Mary Hood may have southern settings, but they address larger questions of relationships among people and between God and humanity. Sometimes, when works of fiction don’t rise to the level of great literature, they can, unwittingly, be the most valuable historical sources. The stories of Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, for instance, achieved great popularity in ante-bellum Georgia. His tales of frontier brawls and drunken escapades were extremely funny to southern audiences of the time. Students often read the same stories today and ask why people were so amused. Placing the stories in a historical context can tell us volumes about frontier culture. The March and Bombingham are historical novels. While novelists are not bound by the same rules of evidence as historians, the authors of these books did a tremendous amount of research so that their settings and the thoughts and dialects of their characters would be as historically accurate as possible. Their books express strong opinions about historical events. Tony Grooms, for instance, attempts in Bombingham to dispel some of the widely held myths about the civil rights movement. When you read these works, you can evaluate them as literature or history. You can look at the elements of fiction (plot, characterization, setting and atmosphere, subject, theme, and style). And you can ask yourself whether the authors tell believable stories that place southern ecology in a southern cultural context. We will discuss all these things in class.

Students of literature and history at KSU are accustomed to text-based courses revolving around primary documents. It’s hard to have an intelligent opinion of a Shakespearian play if you haven’t read or watched it. It’s equally impossible to have an intelligent opinion about an historical event if you weren’t there or have not read any accounts from people who were. In your exams you will be expected to discuss ideas that come out of the readings and base your conclusions on evidence. The instructors will do their best to offer interpretations of the material, but ultimately the course will have value when you think about the readings and reach your own conclusions. When you do that, you will be acting like true students of history and literature.

Daily Class Schedule:

Mon., Jan. 8 – Introduction; video: The Secret Seashore. You can begin your postings for Week 1 (Jan. 10-17) anytime. Go to WebCT Vista and click on Discussion Topics for Week 1.

gacountymap.htm

Mon., Jan. 15 – MLK Holiday

Wed., Jan. 17 – Cornerstones, chap. 2, “Cherokees and Creeks,” pp. 10-24 C02.doc; Marilou Awiakta, “Daydreaming in Primal Space,” daydreaming.pdf DaydreamingPrimalSpace.doc. Also read “Introduction” James Cobb, Away down South, pp. 1-8. Quiz # 1 over readings for Jan. 10 & 17.

Mon., Jan. 22 – Cornerstones, chap. 3, “Trustees and Malcontents,” pp. 25-37 C03.doc and Away Down South, chap. 1, “Cavalier and Yankee,” pp. 9-33. Cobb 1.doc You may want to look at the epilogue of Eugene Genovese’s A Consuming Fire for an example of a modern historian’s use of the Petition of the Inhabitants of New Inverness: A Consuming Fire.pdf

Wed., Jan. 24 – Cornerstones, chap. 4, “Patriots and Loyalists,” pp. 38-49 C04.doc; Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, “The Fight,” http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/longstreet/georgia.html#geor53 GS-The Fight.doc. For a discussion of the elements of fiction (plot, subject, theme, setting, etc.) please see elementsfiction.doc. Quiz # 2.

Mon., Jan. 29 – Cornerstones, chap. 5, “State of Georgia and the Cherokees,” pp. 50-62 C05.doc and Cobb, Away Down South, chap. 2, “The South Becomes a Cause,” pp. 34-66; Cobb 2.doc also read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s account of Cherokee Removal Emerson on Cherokee Removal.pdf .

Wed., Jan. 31 – Cornerstones, chap. 6, “Slavery in Ante-Bellum Georgia,” pp. 63-76 C06.doc. Also read Doctorow, The March: a Novel, Part 1, “Georgia,” chaps. 1-5, pp. 3-50. The readings in Cornerstones today include two oral histories with former slaves conducted in the late 1930s by the Federal Writers’ Project. If you would like to access the entire collection of several thousand interviews, it is now online through the Library of Congress’ American Memory Project. The collection is entitled “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938” at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html. Quiz #3.

Mon., Feb. 5 – Cornerstones, chap. 7, “Secessionists and Cooperationists,” pp. 77-91 C07.doc and The March, Part 1, “Georgia,” chap. 6-17, pp. 51-133.

Wed., Feb. 7 – Cornerstones, chap. 8, “Federal Occupation of Georgia, 1864,” pp. 92-106 C08.doc and The March, Part 2, “South Carolina,” 137-210. Quiz # 4.

Mon., Feb. 12 – Cornerstones, chap. 9, “Reconstruction in Georgia,” pp. 107-21 C09.doc and Part 3, “North Carolina” chaps. 1-2, pp. 214-38. Also please read AMNESTY OATH.doc.

Wed.., Feb. 14 – The March, Part 3, “North Carolina,” finish the book, pp. 239-363. Quiz # 5.

Mon., Feb. 19 – Cornerstones, Chap. 10, “Postwar Poverty,” pp. 122-35 C10.doc Also please read C10 Outline.doc. and copy and bring to class georgialeader.doc.

Wed., Feb. 21 – ID part of midterm in class (questions that can be answered in about a page each). Take-home essay question due by midnight, Saturday, Feb. 24.

Mon., Feb. 26 – Cobb, Away Down South, chap. 6, “The Mind of the South,” pp. 164-72 (W.J. Cash), chap. 7, “The South of Guilt and Shame,”pp.193-96 (Lillian Smith). Cobb 6 and 7.doc

Wed., Feb. 28 – Cornerstones, chap. 11, “Jim Crow Georgia and Its Leaders, Black and White,” pp. 136-50 C11.doc. Also read and Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech (1895). The study guide can be found at C11 Atlanta Compromise.doc. The document can be accessed at the following website: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/39/. Quiz # 6.

Fri., March 2 – last day to withdraw without academic penalty.

Spring Break – March 5-9

Mon., March 12 – Will N. Harben, “The Heresy of Abner Calihan http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/harben/harben.html#harben255 Study guide: GS-Heresy Abner Calihan.doc. Andrews, Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee: read “Foreword” by Mary Hood, “Preface” by Andrews, and pp. 3-135.

Wed., March 14 – Cornerstones, chap. 12, “Leo Frank Case,” pp. 151-63 C12.doc. Also please read Steve Oney’s account of the leading citizens of Marietta who planned the Frank lynching at And the Dead Shall Rise Steve Oney.pdf. Strictly optional: for an online short movie about lynching in America, click on http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html . Quiz # 7.

Mon., March 19 – Andrews, Rosiebelle Lee, pp. 136-245. Jean Toomer, “Blood-Burning Moon” Blood-Burning Moon.pdf GS-Blood-Burning Moon.doc.

Wed., March 21 – Cornerstones, chap. 13, “Georgia’s Rejection of Woman Suffrage,” pp. 164-78 C13.doc. Also please read Frances Newman, “Rachel and Her Children” Rachel and Her Children.pdf GS-Rachel and Her Children.doc. Quiz # 8.

Mon., March 26 – Cornerstones, chap. 14, “Crisis in Agriculture,” pp. 179-92 C14.doc. Also read Raymond Andrews, “Black Boy and Man in the Small Town South,” Prevailing South.pdf. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am485_98/coe/Faces.html http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/fsa/gallery.html Alice Walker, “Strong Horse Tea,” pp. 235-41. Strong Horse Tea.pdf GS-Strong Horse Tea.doc.

Wed., March 28 – Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation” Flannnery Revelation.pdf GS-Revelation.doc and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Good Man Is Hard to Find.pdf Quiz # 9.

Mon., April 2 – Cornerstones, chap. 15, “Moving Toward the Mainstream,” pp. 193-207 C15.doc. Finally, please copy and bring to class B-29s Over Dixie.doc. We will view in class B-29s over Dixie, a 1944 documentary film.

Wed., April 4 – Bombingham, chap. 1-8, pp. 1-99 Bombingham.doc. Also read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1964) at http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/MLK-nobel.html. Finally, please read “Changes in America in the Mid-Twentieth Century that Made a Successful Civil Rights Movement Possible” at Civil Rights forces.doc. Quiz # 10.

Mon., April 9 – Cobb, Away Down South, chap. 8, “No North, No South? The Crisis of Southern White Identity,” pp. 212-35. Cobb 8.doc Cornerstones, chap. 16, “Integration of Public Schools and Colleges,” pp. 208-23 C16.doc. We will also view clips from Eyes on the Prize.

Wed., April 11— Bombingham, chap. 9-16, pp. 101-204. Quiz # 11.

Mon., April 16 – Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Prize Lecture at http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2002/carter-lecture.html. Cornerstones, chap. 17, “Rise of a Future President,” pp. 224-34 C17.doc. Also please copy and bring to class the following two tables: GA POP GROWTH.doc and Ga Election Results.doc.

Wed., April 18 –.Bombingham, chap. 17-26, pp. 205-304. Tony Grooms will visit the class tonight to talk about the book and answer any questions you would like to ask him about it.

Mon., April 23 – Cornerstones, chap. 18, “Economic Development and Quality of Life,” pp. 235-49 C18.doc. Mary Hood, “Moths” Moths.pdf and Ferrol Sams, “Call It Progress” at Ferrol Sams Call It Progress.pdf. The study guide can be found by clicking on C18 Call It Progress.doc.

Wed., April 25 – Cobb, Away Down South, chap. 10, “Blackness and Southerness: African Americans Look South toward Home,” pp. 261-87. Cobb 10.doc Also please read THE TWO GEORGIAS.doc and Ga Election Results.doc. If you want to check the Two Georgias document against a county map, you can access it at http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/gacountymap.htm. Quiz # 12.

Wed., May 2, 5-7 PM – Final Exam