Harper's Academy U.S. History and American Literature

Modernism ranged from 1900-1950, examined the contrasts of the time as the nation experienced explosive growth, prohibition, and the Great War. WWI occurred between 1914-1918, with the U.S. entering the war in 1917. The death toll caused further disillusionment with Americans. Modernism critiques the American Dream. Remember-- America  = New Eden Boundless resources and opportunities No cap on Progress The independent, self-reliant person will always succeed During this era, we see a new appreciation for African-American voices (like Langston Hughes), a rally cry against racism, and the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement planted. Modernism began in Europe and then spread to America. There are four main influences, which I'll talk about more next week in class: 1. Charles Darwin (evolution), On the Species of Man (published in 1859), emphasized Natural Selection and brings in the concept of chance. 2. Sigmund Freud- Modern psychoanalyst, Austrian, emphasized the ...

               Grace and Theology: A Necessary Discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Heather Chandler             D.H. Lawrence asserts in his Studies in Classic American Literature, that “the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it” (8). While this approach is helpful and necessary in many works of literature, it is both misleading and damaging to do so with Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A popular new way of interpreting her work is to look through a secular lens, but separating her Catholic beliefs and allusions reduces her work to a simplistic ambiguous tale, molded to suit our own postmodern desires; and, this is essentially as misguided as looking at Da Vinci’s Last Supper and refusing to note its religious connotations. Instead, we should look at the larger picture,...

Class, We covered so much today in class my head is spinning! We moved around between Marxism, the Industrial Revolution, Southern Gothic literature, and Modernism. Whew! Here's a recap: The Hannahs are researching the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan dynasties, helping us to see where their influence lies today. What does the Rockefeller Foundation support? What roles do their descendants play? How are they still influential in American society a hundred years later? Daniel is researching Margaret Sanger. Who was she? What is she most well-known for? Why do some consider her a hero? Why do some consider her a problematic figure in history? The rest of y'all are going to research Karl Marx and a basic search over WWI. We discussed Marx a little bit in class, and I hope I emphasized that his ideology is something that transcends multiple areas of scholarship. A Marxist reading is a popular way of conducting literary analysis. How does the story examine class? Key to a M...

We will try to watch some of this in class. Whatever we miss, or for those of you that are absent, you can finish watching it here. Please fill out the quiz handed out in class. If you are absent, write an academic paragraph on Fitzgerald's life, as presented in this biography.

                                  I'd like to say that I'm terribly disappointed that class is canceled tomorrow, but I know most of you are probably elated for a snow day. And truthfully, I hope we get enough for me to get out there and teach my younger kids how to have a proper snowball fight. (Form the snowballs quickly and then relentlessly pelt them, never, of course, aiming for their faces ;) So, here are some things I'd like you take note of for the week. You can email me your assignments if you want your papers graded more quickly. Otherwise, you will need to hand those in next Tuesday along with this week's assignments. (I'll get to that in a minute.) I already have your quick quiz ready for this week, so make sure you go ahead and brush up on last week's blog post and class notes. I'll still give it to you next week to give you an opportunity to earn a homework pass. There will ...