American travelers  
	English 286.301          Fall 1999             D.espey    407
bennett 898-7360
despey@english.upenn.edu     Class Listserv   

This course will consider three archetypal journeys in American culture:
going into the wild, going abroad, and going home.  We'll focus on such
motives for travel as escapism, 
erotic desire, a thirst for experience, and nostalgia.   Course work
includes frequent  listserv responses to the readings, as well as a
mid-term essay (4-5 pp), a brief in-class presentation on a critical
article, an autobiographical essay on travel (4-5 pp), and a final essay
(6-8 pp) on a subject of your choice, combining course readings with
independent research.    Numbers in parentheses indicate e-mail postings
by group, due at  5 p.m. the evening before class.  


Texts: (at House of Our Own bookstore) 
	Deliverance    James Dickey
	Into the Wild   Jon Krakauer
            Nothing to Declare    Mary Morris
            Giovanni's Room    James Baldwin
            The Sheltering Sky   Paul Bowles
	 Surfacing     Margaret Atwood
	 The Way to Rainy Mountain   Scott Momaday

	 Coursepack       (Campus Copy Center) Selections by, Edward
Abbey, Jack Kerouac, William Least Heat Moon, Paul Fussell, Mary Morris,
Paul Theroux, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Paul Bowles, Scott
Sanders, Philip Roth, Maria Torgovnick, as well as essays on theory and
criticism
        


Th., Sept. 9	Introduction

Tu., Sept. 14     Leed, Fussell   (1)

Th., Sept. 16     Abbey, Kerouac   (2)

Tu., Sept. 21    The Way to Rainy Mountain (3)

Th., Sept. 23          "      (4)

Tu., Sept. 28      Into the Wild   (1)

Th., Sept. 30          "     (2)

Tu., Oct. 5      Deliverance   (3)

Th., Oct 7          " 		(4)


          
                 

Tu., Oct. 12        Mid-term Due    Morris, "Women and Journeys"      (1)
				       Fussell, "Tourism and International
Understanding"	
Th., Oct. 14        Theroux, from "The Old Patagonian Express, "
"Traveler's Tale" (2)

Tu., Oct. 19            Nothing to Declare   Ex. 1 (3)

Th., Oct. 21		"         (4)

Tu., Oct. 26               Wharton, "Roman Fever"      (1)
                                  Hemingway, "Cat in the Rain," "Hills
Like White Elephants" 
			"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" "Scott
Fitzgerald"  			Fitzgerald, "Babylon Revisited"   

Th., Oct. 28              Baldwin, "Equal in Paris,"   "What it Means to
Be American" 
                                           Baldwin, "Stranger in the
Village"    (2)

Tu., Nov. 2         Giovanni's Room        (3)

Th., Nov. 4                  "		 (4)

Tu., Nov. 9        Bowles    "Call at Corazon"   "The Echo"    (1)

Th., Nov. 11       Bowles      "The Baptism of Solitude"  (Travel
Narrative Due)
			           "A Distant Episode"            (2)

Tu., Nov. 16          The Sheltering Sky          (3)

Th., Nov. 18                   "   			 (4)

Tu., Nov. 23        Morris, "Looking for Home"    Hemingway,  "Soldier's
Home"  
		           Sanders, "Settling Down"  
 			
Tu., Nov. 30       Atwood, Surfacing   (2)

Th., Dec. 2                  "      (3)

Th., Dec. 7        Roth, "Safe at Home"       (4)
		  Torgovnick  "On Being White, Female,
				and Born in Bensonhurst"     

Th., Dec. 9        Theroux, "Memory and Creation"          

Fri, Dec. 17     Final Paper and Portfolio