Literature Laboratory 1

Half-a-dog and Other American Identities in the Nineteenth Century

What is this lab about?

This laboratory focuses around the topic of late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century identities. We've started this discussion with Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. What follows are a number of other literary texts (all of which can be found in the Heath Anthology) and other cultural materials that directly and/or indirectly attempt to suggest what identity is, how it is formed, how it can be deciphered, or why it matters.

Literary Texts

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "Old Woman Magoun" (768)
Louisa May Alcott, "My Contraband" (681)
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sister Josepha," (201)
Joel Chandler Harris, "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story" (115) and "How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox" (116)
Gertrude Bonnin, from Impressions of an Indian Childhood (857)
Sarah Winnemucca, "Life Among the Piutes" (563)
José Martí, "Our America" (879)
Edith Maud Eaton, "In the Land of the Free" (842)

Cultural Materials

Video clip of a 1920s' club scene

Photographs, paintings, and popular press images from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: gallery.gac.edu/Literature-Lab-1

Discussion Starters

Pudd'nhead Wilson suggests that "training is everything." Do these other texts support or refute his claims? Is identity solidly fixed? How is identity defined in these texts? Do the texts express similar definitions or are there contradictions? Do the differences in genre also suggest differences in identity definition? (i.e. short story v. court briefing v. painting)? If these literary and cultural texts were your only peek into late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century American notions of identity, what conclusions would you come to? How would you say American identity of this time period is defined? How does it change?

ASSIGNMENTS

Group Work: Group presentation of lab work: initial questions, discoveries, difficulties, successes, questions, conclusions, and interpretations.

Presentations and discussions will be September 27

Guidelines:

&Mac183; Each group will have 5 minutes on to present to the rest of the class their interpretive discoveries and their reading of "identity" in the texts--to do this, please create a hypothetical character who best exemplifies the complicated ways these texts describe or characterize identity. You may focus on a couple of specific texts or talk more generally about all of them, keeping in mind that you'll still need to draw attention to specific examples to prove your points. Use literary texts as well as specific cultural materials as evidence. Everyone on the group should present some part of the group's information. The presentations will be evaluated according to both content and style.