Sunday, February 15, 2015

Working up Reading Lists

So my reading lists for Fall 2015 are due Monday (yes, this Monday), believe it or not.

This is no issue for two of my classes, which don't really have reading lists -- the Fiction Workshop and the Comp Class.  In those classes, I rely on internet sources, mainly.

But this Fall I am also teaching Diverse Cultures: Working Class Lit, for the second time; and, for the first time, Popular Culture: Dystopian/Utopian Literature.

I'm using some of the same texts in Working Class Lit that I used the last time I taught, but I'm ditching the books that didn't work well and adding in new ones.  Here's the reading list as I've got it so far:

American Working Class Literature                         
Oxford UP

Coming of Age in Mississippi
Anne Moody

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith

The Road to Wigan Pier 
George Orwell    

Drown
Junot Diaz


For Utopian/ Dystopian Lit, I have this so far:

Utopia
Thomas More

The Just City
Jo Walton

The Female Man
Joanna Russ

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert Heinlein

The Dispossessed
Ursula Le Guin

Watership Down
Richard Adams

Comments or suggestions are appreciated!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Every time you post about the books/classes that you're teaching, I wish I has had a professor like you.
Given the choice between studying Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for the 13th time versus actually getting to discuss Joanna Russ or George Orwell, there's no contest.
Given the classes required to graduate all have titles like English Drama (nothing but Shakespeare), English Fiction (nothing but Shakespeare), Study of a Single Author (choice of Shakespeare or Desiderius Erasmus), ect, You seem to have so much freedom in the choice of what to teach and how to teach it.