30079 - Anglo-American Literature 1 (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course  American literary culture, roots music & folk revival. From Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan via  Harry Smith's  Anthology of American Folk Music will introduce the students to an important strain of American literary and musical culture and to the "invisible Republic" (Greil Marcus's definition) that so much means to contemporary identity.

Course contents

American literary culture, roots music & folk revival. From Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan via Harry Smith's  Anthology of American Folk Music

The course is aimed at students of both years of Laurea Magistrale (Letterature moderne, comparate e postcoloniali) and open to international exchange students.

NB: Students taking the second exam of Letterature Anglo-Americane (LM) are kindly requested to contact the instructor at the beginning of the course.

The course will focus on some specific aspects of American roots music in relation to American history, storytelling, literature, and culture at large. In the context of popular culture, the passage from oral musical traditions – mostly of European origin, and yet with important inserts of African retentions – to the hardcore bulk of recorded music collected by Harry Smith for his 1952 seminal Anthology of American Folk Music will be examined, the very same multicultural heritage that formed the basic texts on which the folk music revival of the late 1950s and 1960s took shape. The slippery notion of an “American character” will be touched upon, especially in relation with “timeless” balladry and the peculiar connection of the American voice with prophetic tradition. Symptomatic figures like Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan will be under scrutiny, along with (more “subterranean”) influential ones like Harry Smith and Alan Lomax. The Greenwich Village scene and the early editions of the Newport festival will be analyzed. Some case studies will be offered of “anthems” like Guthrie's “This Land Is My Land” and Dylan's “Like a Rolling Stone” among others, while Greil Marcus's critical work, disseminated in various studies, will constitute the virtual backbone of the course. Films and documentaries will be screened, and audio sources listened to during the course.

Readings/Bibliography

N.B.: What follows herewith is a list of reference sources that will be examined during the course. A course schedule will be distributed and a course log will be published by the instructor on his institutional "webpage docente", constantly updating course developments and providing useful tips about the students' study.

Elizabeth F. Barkley, Crossroads: The Multicultural Roots of America's Popular Music (2007)

Robert Cantwell, When We Were Good. The Folk Revival (1986)

Ronald D. Cohen, Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940-1970 (2002)
Ronald D. Cohen, Woody Guthrie: Writing American Songs (2012)

Ed Cray, Ramblin' Man. The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie (2006)

Bob Dylan, Chronicles. Volume One (2004)

Benjamin Filene, Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music (2000)

Brian K. Garman, A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working-Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen (2000)
Mary Jo Guthrie Edgmon, Woody's Road (2012)
Nora Guthrie, My Name Is New York: Ramblin' around Woody Guthrie's Town (2012)

Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory (1943)
Woody Guthrie, House of Earth (2013)
Woody Guthrie (Maurizio Bettelli, Ed editor), Le canzoni di Woody Guthrie (2008)

Richard Hajdu,Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña(2011)

Mark Allan Jackson, Prophet Singer: The Voice and Vision of Woody Guthrie (2007)
Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life (1999)
Greil Marcus, Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads (2005)

Greil Marcus & Sean Wilentz (Eds), The Rose and the Briar (2006)
Greil Marcus, The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice (2006)
Greil Marcus, Old, Weird America (2007)
Greil Marcus, Bob Dylan (2012)
Gillian Mitchell, The North American Folk Music Revival: Nation and Identity in the United States and Canada, 1945-1980 (2007)
John S. Partington, The Life, Music, and Thought of Woody Guthrie: A Critical Appraisal (2011)
Alessandro Portelli, Note americane: musica e culture negli Stati Uniti (2011)

Neil Rosenberg (Ed), Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined (1993)

Suze Rotolo, A Freewheelin' Time. A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties (2008)
Robert Santelli, This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song (2012)
Robert Santelli and Emily Davidson (Eds), Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie (1999)

Robert Santelli et Al. (Eds), American Roots Music (2001) (based on the PBS tv series)
Will Schmid, A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly(1991)

Dave Van Ronk (with Elijah Wald), The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir (2005)

Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America (2011)
Izzy Young, The Conscience of the Folk Revival (2012)

 

Filmography

American Roots Music (PBS, Jim Brown 2001)
Woody Guthrie Legacy (1999)
Woody Guthrie & Lead Belly Tribute: A Vision Shared (Jim Brown, 1988)
Pete Seeger. The Power of Song (PBS, Jim Brown 2007)
The Harry Smith Project / The Old, Weird America(Rani Singh, 2006)

That High Lonesome Sound (John Cohen, 1960, 1996)
Festival (Murray Lerner, 1967)
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival (Murray Lerner, 2007)
No Direction Home (Martin Scorsese, 2005)
I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007)
Don't Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1966) 
Lomax. The Songhunter(Rogier Kappers, 2006)
Bound for Glory (Hal Ashby, 1976)

The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)

Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
A Mighty Wind (Christopher Guest, 2004)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Ethan & Joel Coen, 2000)

Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan & Joel Coen, 2013)

Teaching methods

Seminar course [in English] with part lecture, part class discussion. Attendance is strongly recommended.

Assessment methods

The final exam consists of two parts, one written and one oral. Students will be required to write a 12-15 page long paper ( complete with footnotes and bibliographical references ) after discussing its topic & outline with the instructor. Papers will be evaluated with reference to the critical and methodological competence developed. Specifically, they will be evaluated against the awareness and knowledge of the (mandatory) course syllabus and materials. The students' ability to reorganize course materials -- primary and secondary sources, seminar work in class included -- into an original critical discourse or angle will be particularly appreciated. Also appreciated will be a solid, organic reference to American literature, history and culture. The quality and propriety of written language used will constitute a significant element of the overall evaluation. All these elements, at their best, will indicate a level of excellence, and judged accordingly; while less original developments with less grounded critical reference will lead to middle evaluations (as long as the students show a sufficient general understanding of the course topics). "Minimalistic" papers with poorly developed argumentations, or else casual compilations of particularly unorganized developments (typically cut&paste-constructed), will be considered unacceptable and consequently turned down.

 

An oral conversation with the instructor will also take place. It will move from the instructor's comments and remarks on the paper to the exploration of the context of the course's topics and syllabus. Such a conversation will be particularly useful in order for the instructor to reach a full assessment of the student's work and preparation (her/his knowledge and understanding, ability of making autonomous judgements, communication and learning skills, as applied to the course's specific grounds), and for the student to better illustrate and explain possible misunderstandings with her/his paperwork.

In front of a negative evaluation of the student's paperwork, such a conversation exchange would offer a full picture of the situation. Students unable to reach the required minimal level of proficiency would need to re-take the exam on some other session.

Teaching tools

For this course we will resort to audiovisual materials of various kinds, some of which are rare or not particularly easy to find. That is why attendance is strongly recommended.

Office hours

See the website of Franco Minganti