The Letter A
I've seen it done in a zine before so I thought I would do it here, since I am no longer doing zines anymore. It would be my alphabet issue. I'm not gonna put it on my zine filter but will put it under a cut so you can read or skip what you like.
American Literature.
When I was at uni in my third year I took a doubble course called American Dreams. I chose this course based on the reading list and on the lecturer who w,s amazing. I have to say I did have a crush on him (after I took the course not before) I took the course based on 2 lectures he gave. His name was Dudley. He was from Chicago, he must have been in his late 50s. He had a beard, he wore socks with sandals and was a bit unkempt. He had balls. He was massively intelligent. He was a live wire. The type of guy who had the creditals to lead the department but was too much of a lose cannon to do so. He phoned up the publishers of one of our texts and berrated them for how much they were charging for the short story which was a vital piece of literature. He was passionate, he always turned up to class (I have had lecturers who didn't). He wanted us to do well. He gave excellent feedback.
There were 8 of us in his class and it was run democratically. We looked at the potential book list and voted, we had to give reasons for or against. We had to be informed. I got Henry James off the programme based on the fact that he was too 'clever clever' (hummm possibly not the best argument). He asked me what I had read and what I thought, he actually agreed and it was gone. We all voted against Walt Whitman though Dudley vetoed this and said it was an American Literature course and we had to do 1 poem.
I loved that course. I was able to write some really ballsy essays for that class and really explore the works. Dudley supported us to do this and really encouraged us to explore new ideas and comparisons. I am not massively intelligent (no great shocker there) and was a standard low 2.1/high 2.2 student. I got the only first I ever got in his class for an essay looking and psychological issues in Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night. I did a comparison of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and 1984. I read some amazing things. I loved the way I could take an idea and run with. I loved how responsive he was. I loved the novels we read, I loved their rawness. The year before I had studdied some European Literature and was forced to read Falubert's A Sentimental Education and present on it to my seminar group. It bored me to tears. The literature on this course was a break from all that. The way it was delivered was a break from all that.
I always felt that if I did an MA I would want to study American Lit and I would want to do it in the US. This will never happen.