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Instructor: Dr. Dale Rigby Office: 110A Cherry Hall Office Phone: 745-5781 Home Phone: 393-2017 Email: dale.rigby@wku.edu Office Hours: 12-2 MWF
COURSE DESCRIPTION
E395 aims to provide an introduction to the close reading of an eclectic range of primary texts defined broadly within the genre of post--World War II American nonfiction prose--very broadly. This genre has acquired many monikers: “literary nonfiction,” “creative nonfiction,” “literary nonfiction,” “not-fiction,” or “the literature of fact.” Our reading list suggests that modes from the “science essay” to “immersion journalism,” from “nature writing” to the “nonfiction novel,” not to mention the “literary essay” or “the memoir” can fall within its capacious boundaries.
We’ll dabble in some “theory” this semester, but only when the theory is wedded to practice. In the wise words of Madeleine Blais, “Abstractions are meaningless unless they are embedded in reality. If we do have a theoretical touchstone to caress, why not consider the words of Daniel Lehman [per today’s reading of Orwell’s The Hanging]:
Underlying [this class] are several assumptions: (1) any literary Text, whether fiction or nonfiction, even one’s own memory of events…is “crafted” in important ways, rendering impossible the simple equation of “actuality” with nonfiction…(2) the decision by either the author or the publisher to term a product “nonfiction” nonetheless remains an important key to how it is written and read and is much more socially constructed and negotiated by both author and reader than derived by some empirical standard of truth; the decision to engage a nonfictional text triggers a powerful and ongoing dilemma for the author…and for the reader… --Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction Over the Edge (1997)
EXPECTATIONS
Before deciding upon E395, please consider the following:
--my strong guess is that you should have already successfully completed E200 and E300 (and so already have an emerging sense of how to use the library to conduct research) to manage E395.
--THERE IS A LOT OF time-consuming WEEKLY WRITING AND READING. I’ve tried to make our pace as manageable as possible: we’ll take two weeks with Armies of the Night, which I’m guessing might be our toughest read; we’ll have Spring Break to read the longish My Own Country; our easier reads towards the end of the semester. You’ll have a week for both take-home exams.
--WEEKLY ACTIVE ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY. The keyword there is “active.”” Meaning that you come to every class prepared to discuss both our reading and the writing/thinking/research that you’ll be proud to share each week.
--ALL DEADLINES ARE ABSOLUTE.
MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
1. Weekly 1-page “responses and researches” (12 in all) 40% of grade We’ll look at a sample tonight and I’ll explain how I see these weekly writings fitting into our semester. By weighing them heavily, I hope to provide enough incentive for everybody, each week, to exercise their constitutional rights to some space in the public forum of our class! Each week you will receive a prompt for the next week’s reading that will require various kinds of research helping us better unpack the text during our class discussion. These prompts are a form of “pre-reading” guiding your journeys each week into literary nonfictions…
NOTE: in order to receive credit you MUST SHOW UP ON TIME EACH WEEK WITH ENOUGH COPIES FOR EVERYBODY IN THE CLASS. Our class won’t work (nor will you pass the class) if you don’t meet this requirement)
For the first half of the semester, I will produce the prompts and provide a short supplementary secondary reading; after Spring Break, you’ll all join a group that will offer the prompts and the secondary reading for one week of our discussion. We’ll be forming these groups after our roll has settled into place and you’ve had a chance to browse the texts and have a better idea about the expectations. Probably by the fourth week of class.
2. Midterm exam (4-5 pages) 20% of grade (due March 12)
3. A piece of Literary Nonfiction (10 pages) 20% of grade The choice of subject and mode is completely up to you (except that I would like you attempt something other than a memoir), and I’ll be asking for a prospectus and scheduling conferences with everybody before midterm to discuss your plans in detail. This piece is due at the start of our last regular class, April 30. I hope there will be time to compile these pieces into a class anthology ready before you show up with your take-home final on May 7th.
4. Final exam (take home: 4-5 pages) 20% of grade (due May 7)
This exam will ask you to both address the six texts we’ll have read since Spring Break and to place your own piece of literary nonfiction within the concerns of the course.
WEEKLY SCHEDULE FOR E395
Week One: Jan 15 Introductory stuff…
Week Two: Jan 22 HIROSHIMA
Week Three: Jan 29 THE IMMENSE JOURNEY
Week Four: Feb 5 ENCOUNTERS WITH THE ARCHDRUID
Week Five: Feb 12 ECOLOGY OF A CRACKER CHILDHOOD
Week Six: Feb 19 ARMIES OF THE NIGHT (through part III)
Week Seven: Feb 26 ARMIES OF THE NIGHT
Week Eight: March 5 SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
Week Nine: March 12 TAKE HOME MIDTERM DUE (group #1 prompts)
Week Ten: SPRING BREAK
Week Eleven: March 26 MY OWN COUNTRY (group #2 prompts)
Week Twelve: April 2 BROTHERS AND KEEPERS (group #3 prompts)
Week Thirteen: April 9 THE WOMAN WARRIOR (group #4 prompts)
Week Fourteen: April 16 MINOR CHARACTERS (group #5 prompts)
Week Fifteen: April 23 HUNGRY FOR THE WORLD (group #6 prompts)
Week Sixteen: April 30 FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (lit nonfiction due)
FINALS WEEK: May 7: TAKE HOME FINAL DUE
Some Sample Prompts for John Hersey’s Hiroshima
1. What was the 1994-95 Enola Gay exhibit controversy all about?
2. Who was Mary McCarthy and how did she respond to Hiroshima?
3. How was the bombing of Nagasaki similar/different from Hiroshima’s bombing?
4. How does Major Claude R. Eatherly fit into the Hiroshima conversation?
5. What kind of editing process did Hiroshima go through?
6. What were the dominant wartime American images of Japanese?
7. How was the Potsdam Conference relevant to our text?
8. How did Father Siemes’ report differ from Hersey’s
9. What was the Lucky Dragon incident?
10. Who were the “Hiroshima maidens?”
11. How is the Korean response relevant to a reading of Hiroshima?
12. Who was Norman Cousins and what was his response to Hiroshima?
13. What were the Japanese internment camps?
14. How did President Truman first explain the atom bomb to the nation?
15. Hiroshima modeled on Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey—how so?
16. What are Jesuits and what were they doing in Japan?
17. How are Japanese burial practices relevant to Hiroshima?
18. What about the 1947 film, “The Beginning or the End?”
19. What did General Leslie Groves have to do and say about Hiroshima?
20. What is there to know about General MacArthur and censorship?
21. How have the Japanese tended to teach the history of World War II?
22. Who was Dwight Macdonald and what was his take on Hiroshima?
23. Who was Henry Stimson and what did he publish in Harpers in Feb 1947?
24. What kind of bombing had preceded Hiroshima on the Japanese mainland?
A Sample Response…(prepared on the quick, but you get the idea)
PROMPT: What else is there to know about Hirohito and his “surrender”
RELEVANT PASSAGE/S: “…the dull, dispirited voice of Hirohito, the Emperor Tenno, was speaking for the first time in history over the radio: ‘After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions…we have decided to effect a settlement…by resorting to an extraordinary measure…’” (64-65)
HOW/WHERE DID I SEARCH? I used google.com and found the actual text of the radio broadcast and then found a fascinating seminar paper by a Japanese graduate student, Koji Fuse, called the “Decontextualization of Hirohito” that was an analysis of the presentation of Hirohito in a 1995 Showtime miniseries called “Hiroshima.”
WHAT DID I LEARN? The reason Hersey mentions the shock of Japanese actually hearing their Emperor’s voice on August 15 is that Hirohito (1901-1989) was considered a deity by many Japanese. No wonder they were as shocked by hearing his voice as hearing his carefully crafted surrender on the radio. There is much controversy to this day about both Hirohito’s role in what is known as the “15 year war” (Japan’s imperialist moves into China and Korea predating Pearl Harbor) and about his “surrender” over the radio.
Was he a pacifist puppet of the Japanese military (as befits a deity) or was he an integral part of the Japanese war effort? All of this was complicated by the fact that after his surrender General Douglas MacArthur, in charge of occupation, decided it was best not to try Hirohito as a war criminal (a controversial decision to this day). On Jan 1, 1946, MacArthur had Hirohito broadcast the acceptance of a new American-made constitition and to state publicly that the “divinity of the emperor” was a false belief.
Though Hersey doesn’t make any overt criticism of the speech, others have. It’s been called pure denial and racist—i.e, “We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the Emancipation of East Asia.”
That is a bizarre way to categorize Japan’s colonization of Manchuria and Korea!
REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION Just noticed that pages 64-65 end the “Details are being Investigated” section with an intriguing letter from Mr. Tanimoto about “sacrifice” and how he and other Japanese were prepared for “making whole-hearted sacrifice for the ever-lasting peace of the world.” Hmmmn. So much for Hersey not editorializing. Isn’t there an irony that the Aftermath section deals with so many of Tanimoto’s struggles as a “hibakusha” and the whole book ends on 152 against the irony of all the subsequent nuclear tests and Tanimoto’s attempts to keep the memories alive. He seems comfortable, with all his capitalist good made in Hiroshima…and yet, what about the last line, “His memory, like the world’s, was getting spotty.” I know my memory of Hirohito sure was spotty before the research I did!
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