ENGLISH 4 WINTER 2004

“Contemporary California Classics”: Freshman Seminar

This two-unit freshman seminar will study and discuss five literary works dramatizing major challenges facing contemporary California . The course meets Wednesdays 4:00-6:00 and enrollment is limited to 15. The texts and issues are:

(1) CANNERY ROW by John Steinbeck (1944). [ The ecology of the midPacific Coast and its communities, with an emphasis on the intellectual and creative influence of marine biologist Ed Ricketts on novelist John Steinbeck.

(2) CADILLAC DESERT by Mark Reisner (1990). [ A focus on water in the west as development and population approach maximum hydraulic carrying capacity and tensions unfold between agricultural use, urban demand and the need to preserve indigenous regions and species.

(3) HOLY LAND by D.J. Waldie (1996) [ The explosive growth of cities using Lakewood—a suburb of Los Angeles and an “instant” town of 30,000 constructed and inhabited in 1951—as a model for consideration of the individual, social, economic and environmental consequences of mushrooming urban centers.

(4) EPITAPH FOR A PEACH by David Mas Masumoto (1995). [ Agricultural California and the economic pressures that endanger the family farm, wholesome, energy-efficient food, and the ethnic communities that have traditionally toiled in the fields and groves of the state.

(5) CROSSING OVER by Rubén Martínez (2001). [ The tensions between “mainstream” California and the “Mexican Manifest Destiny,” scrutinizing the demographic, economic and cultural forces behind the emerging Chicano plurality in California, emphasizing the contrast between rural Mexican community and the stark realities of life in Los Angeles and surrounding regions.

SEMINAR GOALS

(1) To inform and shape student awareness of major issues of natural resources, environmental preservation, agriculture, urban sprawl and ethnic identity and acculturation confronting California. (2) To engage and understand the workings of recent California literary texts and emerge with an appreciation for their thematic treatments, structures and styles and for the literary cultures of which they are a part; (3) To explore historical factors and contemporary pressures that inform the challenges before us as citizens of the Golden State and to emerge with a greater sense of and tolerance for the complex diversity that characterizes us geologically, bioregionally, culturally, politically and aesthetically.

SEMINAR PLAN AND ACTIVITIES

Biweekly discussion of individual texts alternating with seminar sessions featuring student reports, scholar and author visits, films, possible field trips.