Any Southern Literature fans out there?

[Alelou]

I don't expect my students to agree with me, just to do the work and support their opinions.

[starwatcher]

Hi Alelou, I don't know if either of these would be useful to you, but Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is pretty good, which is set during the Civil War, and Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone, while probably not southern literature per se, is one of the best books I've read for a long time.

[Alelou]

Thanks, Starwatcher. I'm pretty much set for this semester (have to be or the books wouldn't be ordered!), but I'll keep those in mind for the future.

[lfvoy]

Thanks, Starwatcher. I'm pretty much set for this semester (have to be or the books wouldn't be ordered!), but I'll keep those in mind for the future.

So just out of curiosity, what was your final reading list? I'd love to know what the pros think.

[Alelou]

I don't pretend to have come up with the be-all and end-all of Southern lit (this is a freshman-level course designed to introduce students to a diversity of literature, intended for non-English majors), but I went with Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, McCullers' The Member of the Wedding, and an anthology called Growing Up in the South that allows me to bring in Faulkner, O'Connor, Gaines, Walker, Grau, etc. And then there's some stuff I'll photocopy, including a parody of Southern lit called "That's What I Like (About the South)" by Dillard.

But we will also talk about Gone With the Wind and even the godawful Tobacco Road as important influences on popular ideas of the South, using some video clips. (I have GWTW at home for reading now, but that thing is HUGE.)

And for those who signed up for the course because they saw Tammy Wynette or the Dixie Chicks in the description, they'll have a popular culture presentation and can do it on a country song if they choose.

Mind you, if I teach this again, I'll probably change the mix. Might even try to get them through a Faulkner novel. It can't be that much harder than wading through Hurston's use of dialect.

[starwatcher]

I think an anthology is a really good idea, that way you can introduce students to a wide selection of writers, but the excerpts are usually grouped by theme, and the introductory essays are usually pretty decent, too.

Any chance you could squeeze in a Brit via webcam? I'll sit at the back of the class and be a model student

[Alelou]

Sorry. The small group work would be kind of hard to handle.

The anthology is unbelievably cheap -- $7.95 -- and has a really pretty representative selection. Anyone who's bought textbooks knows how cheap that is. I wasn't sure they still published paperbacks that cheap. The other books are cheap too. So at least I don't have to feel guilty about their overpriced textbooks there. (I do in my community college classes, but as an adjunct I'm stuck with what the dept. wants).