American Narratives of Homelessness. Literary Anthropology 4219-SC0011
The course discusses literary anthropology as an interdisciplinary method of cultural analysis. Students will understand literary qualities of anthropology as well as anthropological features of narratives. At the beginning we will read theoretical works by James Clifford,, Mrylin Cohen, Dominka Ferens and Jerome Bruner. Next we will focus on American narratives of homelessness and try to trace traditional narrative forms as well as discover their alternations in contemporary stories about and of unhoused people. The course presents several types of narratives: from rags to riches, tramp autobiography, activist narrative and discusses them in the context of testimony. One of the meetings is devoted to citizen journalism. Students will have a chance to become familiar with voices of those usually marginalized, since we will read not only about homeless people, but also analyze their own words expressed on their blogs, in books, in a comic book, or in the interviews they gave journalists and random citizens. Course literature includes works in literary and cultural theories, novels, reportages, ethnography, graphic novel, documentary movies, blogs and photography.
We will ponder on connections between narratives and possibility of cultural and social change.
Apart from regular participation in class discussion and giving a presentation in order to pass the course you can either write a classic academic essay or contribute to literary anthropology with your own short story or a reportage about homelessness in Warsaw, the place of your origin or in the US.
The course is recommended for those interested in literature, cultural anthropology, ethnography, journalism, social justice and social change.
Trigger warning:
Please, note that the course is concerned with difficult life situations and traumatic experiences of people in the crisis of homelessness including sexual harassment, rape, physical and psychological abuse, domestic violence, and substance abuse.
Type of course
Mode
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
Student understands specificity of literary anthropology and selected literary theories concerned with cultural and social aspects of a text (Ferens, Bruner) as well as reflexive turn in cultural studies (Clifford).
Student knows
- selected types of American narratives about homelessness;
-aesthetics of Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism, that are often present in American narratives about homelessness.
Skills
Student can use methods of literary anthropology to analyse contemporary narratives about homelessness published in the U.S.
Social Competences
Student is ready for critical reception of American media messages and narratives about homelessness.
Student can express and defend their opinion about problems with representation of houseless people in the US.
Student respects a houseless individual as a human being.
Assessment criteria
Participation - 20% of the final grade
Presentation - 30% of the final grade
Essay or project - 50% of the final grade
Grading sale:
<60% - 2 (unsatisfactory)
60-67% - 3 (satisfactory)
68-74% - 3+
75-82% - 4 (good)
83-89% - 4+
90-100% - 5 (very good)
Bibliography
Alger, Horatio. 1868/ 2002. Ragged Dick. PolyGlot Press. Available at Project Gutenberg (fragments)
Allen, John. 2004. Homelessness in American Literature: Romanticism, Realism, and Testimony. Routledge. (selected chapters) Anderson, Nels. 1923 / 1967. The Hobo. Sociology of the Homeless Man, The University of Chicago Press. (Introduction, “Hobohemia” and the 2nd part)
Bruder, Jessica. .2017. Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. (chapters: 4,5)
Bruner, Jerome. 2001. „Self-Making and World-Making”. Narrative and Identity edited by James Brockmeier and Donald Carbaugh. Jon Benjamin Publishing Company.
Clifford, James. 1986. “On Ethnographic Allegory”. In .Writing Cultures. The Politics and Poetics of Ethnography edited by James Clifford & George Marcus, 98-122. University Press Berkely.
Cohen, Marylin.. „Introduction: Anthropological Aspects of a Novel”, Marylin Cohen (ed.) Novel Approaches to Anthropology. Contributions to Literary Anthropology, 1-26. Lexington Books 2013.
Felman, Shoshanna, and Dori Laub. 1992. Testimony. Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. Routledge. (the first three chapters)
Ferens, Dominika. “Intersections of Literature and Ethnography in the United States / Prolínání Literatury a Etnografi e ve Spojených Státech Amerických.” Český Lid 103, no. 3 (2016): 371–418. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26426196.
Landowne, Youme, and Anthony Horton. 2008. Pitch Black. Don’t Be Skerd. Cinco Puntos Press. (graphic novel)
London, Jack. 1907 / 2005. The Road. Project Gutenberg e-book.
National Coalition for the Homeless. “STUDENT HOMELESS CHALLENGE PROJECT. Marking the Ability to Successfully Survive the Harsh Conditions of Life on the Streets”. National Coalition for the Homeless.
Rameau, Max. 2008. Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village Shantytown. AK Press. (selected chapters)
Riis, Jacob. 1890. "Street Arabs". In How the Other Half Lives. Studies among the Tenements of New York.. Charles Scribner’s Sons. Project Gutenberg.
Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. Picador (selected chapters)
FILMS, BLOGS, PHOTOGRAPHY
Cody, Mark, dir. Umoja Village. Available at YouTube
Heffron, Richard T., dir. Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story. 1986. Fries Entertainment / LeVine-Robins Productions; available at YouTube Horvath, Mark. Invisible People TV.(videoblog)
Levin, Peter, dir. 2003. From Homeless to Harvard (available at YouTube)
Rader, Ruth. Ruthie in the Sky, http://ruthiessky.blogspot.com/.
Riis’s, Jacob. photographs, Museum of City of New York: http://collections.mcny.org/Explore/Highlights/Jacob%20A.%20Riis/
Sheptock, Eric. TickTock Sheptock [blog], http://streatstv.blogspot.com/
Singer, Marc, dir. Dark Days. 2000; Picture Farm Production; available at https://lookmovie2.to/movies/view/dark-days-2000
+ street photography presenting homeless people on Flickr and YouTube videos made by random American citizens that registered their conversations with homeless people
Zhao, Chloe. 2020.Nomadland.
The reading list might be slightly changed
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: