Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen

Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen
Author: Jacquelyn Y. McLendon
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2016-09-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1603292217

Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand and Passing, published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, fell out of print and were thus little known for many years. Now widely available and taught, Quicksand and Passing challenge conventional "tragic mulatta" and "passing" narratives. In part 1, "Materials," of Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen, the editor surveys the canon of Larsen's writing, evaluates editions of her works, recommends secondary readings, and compiles a list of useful multimedia resources for teaching. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," aim to help students better understand attitudes toward women and race during the Harlem Renaissance, the novels' relations to other artistic movements, and legal debates over racial identities in the early twentieth century. In so doing, contributors demonstrate how new and seasoned instructors alike might use Larsen's novels to explore a wide range of topics--including Larsen's short stories and letters, the relation between her writings and her biography, and the novels' discussion of gender and sexuality.

Teaching Modernist Anglophone Literature

Teaching Modernist Anglophone Literature
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018-08-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004362371

Teaching Modernist Anglophone Literature features fresh classroom approaches to teaching modernism, with an emphasis on pedagogy grounded in educational theory and contemporary digital media tools. It offers techniques for improving students’ close reading, critical thinking/writing, and engagement with issues of gender, race, class, and social justice. Discussions are raised of subjectivity, perception, the nature of language, and the function of art. Innovative project ideas, assignments, and examples of student work are offered in a special annex. This volume fills a gap in higher education pedagogy uniquely suited to the experimental nature of modernism. Madden and McKenzie’s inspiring volume can steer the teaching of modernist literature in creative, new directions that benefit both teachers and students. Contributors are: Susan Hays Bussey, William A. Johnsen, Benjamin Johnson, Mary C. Madden, Laci Mattison, Precious McKenzie, Susan Rowland, and Kelsey Squire.

Teaching Modernist Women's Writing in English

Teaching Modernist Women's Writing in English
Author: Janine Utell
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-04-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1603294872

As authors and publishers, individuals and collectives, women significantly shaped the modernist movement. While figures such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein have received acclaim, authors from marginalized communities and those who wrote for mass, middlebrow audiences also created experimental and groundbreaking work. The essays in this volume explore formal aspects and thematic concerns of modernism while also challenging rigid notions of what constitutes literary value as well as the idea of a canon with fixed boundaries. The essays contextualize modernist women's writing in the material and political concerns of the early twentieth century and in life on the home front during wartime. They consider the original print contexts of the works and propose fresh digital approaches for courses ranging from high school through graduate school. Suggested assignments provide opportunities for students to write creatively and critically, recover forgotten literary works, and engage with their communities.

Passing

Passing
Author: Nella Larsen
Publisher: Alien Ebooks
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2022
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 166762265X

Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen (1891 –1964) published just two novels and three short stories in her lifetime, but achieved lasting literary acclaim. Her classic novel Passing first appeared in 1926.

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Eliza Haywood

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Eliza Haywood
Author: Tiffany Potter
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-02-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1603294252

During her long and varied career, Eliza Haywood acted onstage, worked as a publisher and bookseller, and wrote prolifically in many genres, from novels of seduction to essays in periodicals. Her works illuminate the private emotional lives of people in eighteenth-century England, invite readers to consider how women in that culture defined themselves and criticized oppression, and help us better understand the social debates of the period. This volume addresses a broad range of Haywood's works, providing literary and sociopolitical context from writings by Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Samuel Johnson, and others, and from contemporary documents such as advice manuals and court records. The first section, "Materials," identifies high-quality editions, reliable biographical sources, and useful background information. The second section, "Approaches," suggests ways to help students engage with Haywood's work, gain a nuanced understanding of the time period, work with primary documents, and participate in digital humanities projects.

The Cambridge History of American Modernism

The Cambridge History of American Modernism
Author: Mark Whalan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 948
Release: 2023-06-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108808026

The Cambridge History of American Modernism examines one of the most innovative periods of American literary history. It offers a comprehensive account of the forms, genres, and media that characterized US modernism: coverage ranges from the traditional, such as short stories, novels, and poetry, to the new media that shaped the period's literary culture, such as jazz, cinema, the skyscraper, and radio. This volume charts how recent methodologies such as ecocriticism, geomodernism, and print culture studies have refashioned understandings of the field, and attends to the contestations and inequities of race, sovereignty, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity that shaped the period and its cultural production. It also explores the geographies and communities wherein US modernism flourished-from its distinctive regions to its metropolitan cities, from its hemispheric connections to the salons and political groupings that hosted new cultural collaborations.

Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context [4 volumes]

Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context [4 volumes]
Author: Linda De Roche
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 1563
Release: 2021-06-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1440853592

This four-volume reference work surveys American literature from the early 20th century to the present day, featuring a diverse range of American works and authors and an expansive selection of primary source materials. Bringing useful and engaging material into the classroom, this four-volume set covers more than a century of American literary history—from 1900 to the present. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context profiles authors and their works and provides overviews of literary movements and genres through which readers will understand the historical, cultural, and political contexts that have shaped American writing. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context provides wide coverage of authors, works, genres, and movements that are emblematic of the diversity of modern America. Not only are major literary movements represented, such as the Beats, but this work also highlights the emergence and development of modern Native American literature, African American literature, and other representative groups that showcase the diversity of American letters. A rich selection of primary documents and background material provides indispensable information for student research.

The Politics of Color in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen

The Politics of Color in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen
Author: Jacquelyn Y. McLendon
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 1995
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780813915531

A critical examination of Fauset's Plum Bun and Comedy:American Style, and Larsen's Quicksand, recovering a subversive element in the Harlem Renaissance writers whose work was revived by feminists in the late 1970s. McLendon (English, College of William and Mary) explores how the white writers' 19th century stereotype of the "tragic mulatto" is reinvented in the work of the two writers and transformed into a concept of doubleness representing African-American experience. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy
Author: Stacey Peebles
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 160329483X

In the decades since his 1992 breakout novel, All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy has gained a reputation as one of the greatest contemporary American authors. Experimenting with genres such as the crime thriller, the post-apocalyptic novel, and the western, his work also engages with the aesthetics of cinema, and several of his novels have been adapted for the screen. While timely and relevant, his works use idiosyncratic language and contain intense, troubling portrayals of racism, sexism, and violence that can pose challenges for students. This volume offers strategies for guiding students through McCarthy's oeuvre, addressing all his novels as well as his published plays and screenplays. Part 1, "Materials," provides sources of biographical information and key scholarship on McCarthy. Essays in part 2, "Approaches," discuss subjects such as landscape and ecology, mythologies of the American West, film adaptations, and literary contexts and describe assignments that encourage students to write creatively and to examine their personal values.

Approaches to Teaching Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Approaches to Teaching Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Author: Lynn Domina
Publisher: Modern Language Association
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2024-07-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1603296565

One of the most commonly taught slave narratives, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is rightly celebrated for its progressive and distinctive appeals to dismantle the dehumanizing system of American slavery. Depicting the abuse Jacobs experienced, her years in hiding, and her escape to the North, the work evokes sympathy for Jacobs as a woman and a mother. Today, it continues to inform readers about gender and sexuality, power and justice, and Black identity in the United States. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," discusses different editions of the work and suggests background readings. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," explore Jacobs's literary techniques and influences, drawing on autobiography theory, medical humanities, and theology, among other perspectives. Contributors also propose pairings with historical and recent literary works as well as teaching approaches involving visual arts, geography, archives, digital humanities, and service learning.