IUP English Department

Graduate Office - Literature and Criticism
Course Offerings By Semester

Course schedules are subject to change. Please see Cathy Renwick for more information.

SUMMER 2006 SESSION I

ENGL 785 Hometown Literature in the U.S. and Beyond

Dr. Jim Cahalan

M-F 10:15-12:15

(Ph.D. students only)

This course would be a good sequel for students who took my more general Ecocriticism seminar last summer (also 785, but you may take this same course number more than once as long as the topics and texts are different, which is the case here). And it should be interesting and memorable for any qualified Ph.D. student. This is my own current research project and thus of special interest and excitement to me. We won’t meet as a class on Fridays so that you can devote yourselves to your research during this short, intensive seminar.

Literature from and about our own home places can have a great impact on us. How might we redefine literature by hometown or (as Applachian people put it) “homeplace,” and develop a new field of “hometown literature,” when we conceive of literature in that way rather than according to traditional categories? In this seminar we’ll take guiding principles from geographer Tim Creswell’s theoretical and applied book Place: a Short Introduction (ISBN 1405106727) and from two key, wonderful literary essayists: Wendell Berry on returning to, reinhabiting, and reviving one’s original home (The Long-Legged House, 1593760132) and Scott Russell Sanders on making a new, adopted home when one cannot return to one’s original homeplace (Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, 080706341X). I’ll also begin with Robert Lowry (my own late first cousin once removed, to bring it really close to home and personal for me) on my own hometown, Cincinnati (The Big Cage, which you won’t be able to order yourself). Other authors will include Edward Abbey on Indiana and Home, Pa. (The Fool's Progress, 0805057919 paperback, not the hardback as in libraries, which is missing 28 pages); Annie Dillard on Pittsburgh (An American Childhood, 0060915188); Leslie Marmon Silko on her New Mexico native home (Storyteller,155970005X), and others to be decided—with no more than one author per hometown.

Texts from other countries will include James Joyce’s Dubliners (0486268705) and others yet to be determined, including at least one book of global literature from a “third-world” country; I learned from students in a previous version of this course that the attachment to home is even stronger in other countries such as Jordan and Taiwan. A crucial part of this course, even more so than usual, will be the students who enroll, as this may even help determine my assignment of other authors, and the course will culminate with students' own presentations, often (though not necessarily) on an author from your own hometown—who need not be famous, just as Lowry isn't, and don’t worry if you don’t think that any authors emerged from your own hometown, or if you don’t have one single hometown, as neither will not in the least disqualify you. If you enroll in this course, please email me when you do so, at Jim.Cahalan@iup.edu or JCahalan@iup.edu, and tell me what your own hometown or homeplace is. Well before this course begins, try to research authors from around your home (whether that is your original or adopted home, whichever feels more essentially “home” to you) and bring along any books, articles, or other materials about what you find that you can get your hands on. Course requirements will include full and active participation in our discussions; a short précis (one-page, single-spaced bibliographic listing followed by summary/overview and critique/response to a critical work of general interest as well as useful for your paper); and a culminating essay on a topic selected by you in consultation with me and finalized in a format suitable for presentation at a conference and/or publication in a journal.

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