Radical literature has played a major role in shaping American culture since the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War. Our course will concentrate on the works of the first half of the twentieth century. Working from an interdisciplinary approach, we’ll discuss anarchism and feminism before the First World War; the rise of radical journalism in the 1920’s; the literature of the great depression, and racism, sexism, and political repression during the Cold War period of the 1950’s. We’ll also discuss working class culture, the Beat Generation, and the rise of multiculturalism in the second half of the twentieth century. Radical literature has artistic value; these works helped to change the course of American literary modernism in the twentieth century. It also speaks to the strongest impulses of the individual: passion, creativity, the desire to live a fulfilling life. Speakers with connections to the subject will visit the class.

We’ll read Emma Goldman’s Living My Life, Michael Gold’s Jews without Money, Agnes Smedley’s Daughter of Earth, Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio, Meridel Le Sueur’s The Girl, Richard Wright’s Native Son, Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, along with handouts of prose and poetry.

This is a reading course, so come prepared to respond to an autobiography, six works of fiction, and a long poem. Grading will be based on reaction papers, an analytical essay, and a research paper. Class participation is encouraged and will affect your evaluation.

John Crawford is Emeritus Associate Professor of English at UNM. He is the publisher of West End Press, with 115 works of progressively oriented fiction, drama, and poetry since 1976, including five titles by Meridel Le Sueur, one of the authors featured in the course. He has participated in the movement for social change for 35 years and written on radical literature and its relationship to American politics and culture. He is also co-editor of the Bedford Anthology of World Literature.

Required Books:

• Goldman, Emma Living My Life (v.1), Dover Books 1970
• Smedley, Agnes Daughter of Earth,Feminist Press 1987
• Gold, Michael Jews without Money,Carroll & Gray 2004
• Le Sueur, Meridel The Girl, West End Press 2006
• Olsen, Tillie Yonnondio, Univ. of Nebraska 2004
• Wright, Richard Native Son, Harper Collins 1998
• Trumbo, Dalton Johnny Got His Gun, Bantam Books 1984
• Ginsberg, Allen Howl & Other Poems, City Lights 1996