Composition One \ Fall 2024
Syllabus
Two documents
• Start-of-Semester Greeting & What to Do through Labor Day
• Course Grading Scheme & Schedule of What to Do After Labor Day
Texts
Click text’s title to go to text, lecture in written form, and Write Now (homework assignment)
Ba Barrett = “Whoever Is There”
Br Brennan = “The Servants’ Dance'‘
D Douglass & O’Connell = Anti-Slavery Polemics
J Jen = “Who’s Irish?”
L Lahiri = “Once in a Lifetime”
M Maugham = “P&O”
Tó Tóibín = Brooklyn
Tr Trollope = “The Telegraph Girl”
V Voltaire = Candide
W Wexford-Savannah Axis = Doing & Leveraging Research
Jhumpa Lahiri
”Once in a Lifetime” (2006)
GENRE — Short story (first published in 2006; then included in the 2008 collection, Unaccustomed Earth)
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — “Once in a Lifetime”
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE — Lahiri
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW — Lahiri
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
Candide; or Optimism (1759)
GENRE — Picaresque satirical novella that critiques several Enlightenment phenomena
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT (Phase One of Three) — Candide
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (1.4) — Voltaire
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW (1.4) — Voltaire
••• ••• •••
>> Read: TEXT (Phase Two of Three) — Candide
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (2.4) — Voltaire
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW (2.4) — Voltaire
••• ••• •••
>> Read: TEXT (Phase Three of Three) — Candide
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (3.4) — Voltaire
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW (3.4) — Voltaire
Additional Resources (Optional)
>> Read: TEXT — Essay by Adam Gopnik about Voltaire
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (4.4) — Voltaire (Focus: Essay by Gopnik)
>> FYI: WRITE NOW (4.4) — Voltaire (Focus: Essay by Gopnik)
Frederick Douglass and Daniel O’Connell
Selected Antislavery Polemics (1843, 1845)
GENRE — Campaigning Political Speeches Captured and Circulated by Print Media
>> First — Addresses delivered by Douglass in 1845: one in Cork, Ireland; the other in Belfast, Ireland
>> Second — The so-called Cincinnati Address, delivered by O’Connell in Dublin, Ireland, in 1843
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — Antislavery Polemics
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (1.2) — Douglass and O’Connell
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE (2.2) — Douglass and O’Connell
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW — Douglass & O’Connell
Additional Resources (Optional)
>> Watch: VIDEO — Christine Kinealy on Douglass in Ireland
>> Listen:PODCAST — The History Show (RTÉ) on Douglass in Ireland
Wexford-Savannah Axis
Doing & Leveraging Research (since 2015)
GENRE — Grant-funded research that has yielded a European micro-campus, a multi-partner transatlantic trade initiative, and several public history/edutourism products
Mandatory Work
>> Study: WEBSITE — Wexford-Savannah Axis (Password: RiverStreet)
>> Study: WEBSITE — Father Peter Whelen: Wexford Savannahian
>> Study: SCHOLARLY ARTICLE — Keeley and Engel on Wex-Sav and Print Media
Additional Resource (Optional)
>> Study: SCHOLARLY ARTICLE — Monica Hunt on Black and Irish Longshoremen in Savannah
Colin Barrett
“Whoever Is There, Come on Through” (2018)
GENRE — Short story (first published in 2018; then included in the 2022 collection, Homesickness)
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — “Whoever Is There”
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE — Barrett
Additional Resource (Optional)
>> Listen: AUDIO — Colin Barrett Reads “Whoever Is There”
>> View: VIDEO — Colm Tóibín Interviews Colin Barrett about Homesickness
Anthony Trollope
“The Telegraph Girl” (1877)
GENRE — Short story (first published in a periodical)
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — “The Telegraph Girl”
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE — Trollope
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW — Trollope
Additional Resource (Optional)
>> Study: SCHOLARLY ARTICLE — Katie Hindmarch-Watson on Telegraphy in Victorian London
W. Somerset Maugham
“P & O” (1926)
GENRE — Short story
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — “P & 0”
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE — Maugham
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW — Maugham
>> Listen: PODCAST — Documentary on One (RTÉ) on Roger Casement
Maeve Brennan
“The Servants’ Dance” (1954)
GENRE — Short story (first published in The New Yorker, a periodical)
Mandatory Work
>> Read: TEXT — “The Servants’ Dance”
>> Study: WRITTEN LECTURE — Brennan
>> Produce for a Grade: WRITE NOW — Brennan (At end of document, “Charlotte” should read “Scarlett”)
Additional Resources (Optional)
>> Study: Margaret Lynch-Brennan on “The Work World of the Irish Bridget”
>> Study: Margaret Lynch-Brennan on “The Social World of the Irish Bridget”
Gish Jen
“Who’s Irish?” (1999)
Colm Tóibín
Brooklyn (2009)
GENRE — Novel
Mandatory Work
>> Study: RESEARCH NOTES — American Swimsuits in the 1950s
Additional Resource (Optional)
