Eng 370--Hemingway & Fitzgerald

Instructor: James Plath     Office: English House 104     Phone: 556-3352

Hours: M-F 9-10 a.m. and by appt.  URL: http://titan.iwu.edu/~jplath

Email: jplath@iwu.edu

Texts:
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection (ed. Matthew Bruccoli)
The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms: The Hemingway Library Edition
Tender Is the Night (hardcover)

Students who choose to use a different edition will be responsible for additional materials in the selected texts.

Course Description and Goals: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were two of America's great writers of the 20th century. Both men came from midwestern backgrounds, but Fitzgerald, who became a symbol of the Jazz Age, wrote about the rich and would-be socialites, while Hemingway was drawn to a rougher class of people and became associated with modernism. The two men met in Paris in April 1925 at the Dingo American Bar in Paris shortly after The Great Gatsby was published, and that started an often ambivalent literary friendship that would last until Fitzgerald died in December 1940.

The main goal of this class is to acquaint students with Hemingway's and Fitzgerald's contributions to American literature and to use letters and criticism to enhance readings of the texts. The course will be run in true seminar fashion, meaning that students will be responsible for the majority of the class time and course content.

Course Requirements:

• Attendance is mandatory. More than 3 unexcused absences affects grade. And in a  seminar, you're considered absent if you don't participate in class discussion.
• Students will be expected to keep up with the reading, to contribute significantly to class discussion with informed opinions (i.e., opinions based on reading and research, not b.s.). Though a skeletal syllabus is provided, since this is a 300-level class, students will responsible for the trajectory and shape that discussions take.
  
• Each student must work in a small group to present additional assigned readings, along with appropriate outside sources.
  
• All assignments MUST be completed for students to receive a grade for the course.
• All work must be typed and double-spaced with standard l to l l/2" margins. Computer work should be submitted in 12pt Times, double-spaced (printed both sides okay). Only hard copy will be accepted. No email submissions unless cleared in advance with the instructor.
  
• Papers must be submitted in MLA style--handout and examples to be provided--and students must present a portion of the final paper at the class "conference" held in lieu of a final exam. The usual conference fare (coffee and donuts) will be provided.
• Two conferences are required, more encouraged. And despite the miracle of technology and the MLA Online Bibliography, computer searches will always prove incomplete. Students should count making several trips to Ames and nearby Milner.

Grades will be determined on the following basis:

Class participation (includes active discussion, assignments and quizzes)----25 percent

Small group presentations------------------------------------------------------------25 percent

2 Critical papers (8-12pp each)---------------------------------50 percent (25 percent each)

Tentative Calendar:

FINAL EXAM "CONFERENCE": Date and time TBA