Sunday, February 10, 2013

Working Class Literature

I'm going to be teaching a class on Working Class Literature in the fall, which means (those of you who teach at universities have guessed this) my book order is due at the end of next week.  So I've been spending the past month hunting through my memory and the internet, sifting out the texts I desperately want the class to read from the texts the class absolutely must read v. the texts the class can afford to buy.

Here's the list I have right now.  Bearing in  mind that they are working class students themselves, and I have to keep this list more or less to something they can afford to buy, do y'all have advice?  Any great mistakes I've made?  Anything you think I desperately need to add?


  • American Working Class Literature, Oxford University Press: an anthology.  Usu. I hate anthologies, but this one contains a lot of cool, useful works.  TOC here.
  • Bartleby the Scrivener, Melville.  It's available free on iBooks and really cheap on Kindle.
  • Tillie Olsen, Tell Me A Riddle
  • George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier
  • Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek
  • Richard Russo, Nobody's Fool
  • Dorothy Allison, Trash
I'd kind of like to cut at least one of those books, since we're getting close to what I can ask students to spend.  Anyway.  Advice and suggestions are welcome!

2 comments:

Bardiac said...

What a GREAT course that's going to be. I've only read that one short story by Olson about ironing, and it's devastatingly good.

delagar said...

"I Stand Here Ironing" -- Yes! I'm definitely using that one.

I've got a heap of films I want to use too. Probably too many!