Lowcountry Literature
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Professor Hutchisson
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In this course we will study the Carolina lowcountry in the twentieth century by reading important works of fiction set in the area and written by native sons and daughters. We will meet the writers of some of these works and discuss with them their vision of the history and culture of the region. Along the way we will cover such related topics as art and architecture, music, and folklore. We will watch video and listen to audio clips about the arts and its impact on Charleston. Students will present reports and participate in discussions about key texts.
| DuBose Heyward, Porgy | Josephine Pinckney, Three O'Clock Dinner |
| Harlan Greene, Why We Never Danced the Charleston | Josephine Humphreys, Rich in Love |
| William Baldwin, The Hard to Catch Mercy | Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid's Chair |
| Mary Alice Monroe, Sweetgrass | Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides |
Class PoliciesOn the Information page
Each student will lead a class discussion
on a topic from one of the texts, based on an outline handout (20%)Critical paper based on and expanded from the class discussion topic, 10-12 pages. The paper will be due one week after the date of the class discussion (25%) A term project with accompanying presentation, on some aspect
of lowcountry culture, 15-20 pages (35%)A comprehensive final exam, both objective and essay (20%)
10 Jan. Welcome and introduction
"The Written Path," a film by Hunter Wentworth on lowcountry writers
Explain course requirements; choose discussion and project topics
View: American Masters' "Porgy and Bess: American Voices" (1998)17 Jan. DuBose Heyward: A Charleston Gentleman and the World of Porgy and Bess
The Charleston Renaissance in Books, Painting, and Music
Reading due: Heyward, Porgy24 Jan. Guest speaker: Barbara Bellows
Reading due: Pinckney, Three O'Clock Dinner
Discuss: Porgy: The White World in the Novel; The Role of Providence; Gullah Religious Beliefs (April Brown- Handout); Gullah Religious Beliefs (Brown- PPT)
Gullah Voodoo - Images and Commentary
Listen to The Gullah Language (Alphonso Brown)
Refreshments: Emily Cooney31 Jan. View: The Art of the Charleston Renaissance
Discuss: Three O'Clock Dinner: The Portrayal of Women (Emily Cooney) The Portrayal of Women - PPT; The Historical Contexts of the Novel; The View of Charleston Society (Courtney Tunmore)
Refreshments: Courtney Tunmore7 Feb. Reading due: Humphreys, Rich in Love
Discuss: Rich in Love: The Family; Marriage and Place (Lindsey Jones); Class and Race (Dianne Foster)
View: excerpts from Bruce Beresford's film version of Rich in Love (1993)
Refreshments: Dianne Foster14 Feb. Guest speaker: Julian Wiles
View: excerpts from Gershwin at Folly (2003)
Reading due: Greene, Why We Never Danced the Charleston
Article by Greene on Ned Jennings, the prototype for Ned Grimke
Discuss: Why We Never Danced the Charleston: Topics Jewish Contexts (Michelle Torres); Sexuality (Anna Lonon) - PPT / Handout
Refreshments: Michelle Torres21 Feb. Guest speaker: Harlan Greene
Reading due: Kidd, The Mermaid Chair (Shannon Madden - A Lacanian Reading)
Discuss: The Mermaid Chair
Refreshments: Shannon Madden28 Feb. Guest speaker: Mary Alice Monroe
Reading due: Monroe, Sweetgrass (Drew Denton)
Discuss Sweetgrass:
Refreshments: Drew Denton6 March Guest speaker: William Baldwin
Reading due: Baldwin, The Hard to Catch Mercy (Read: Baldwin's Lillian Smith Award Acceptance Speech for the novel)
Discuss: The Hard to Catch Mercy (Merrick Fultz); Read this commentary on the nature of the southern gothic novel by Florence King, and how easily it's parodied.
Refreshments: Merrick Fultz8 March (Sat)Field Trip:* Meet at St. Michael's Church (corner of Broad and Meeting Streets) at 9 a.m. for a Literary Walking Tour of Charleston.Postponed due to weather until later in the semester
13 March Guest speaker: Josephine Humphreys. See and listen to Humphreys talk about her former teacher, Reynolds Price, here and on iTunes at Duke's iTunes U page.
Reading due: Conroy, The Prince of Tides
Discuss: The Prince of Tides: The View of Family (Kelley Sirko); Role of Religion (Kristen Poland)
Refreshments: Jim Hutchisson20 March No class Spring Break 3 April Discuss: The Prince of Tides: The Role of New York; Therapy as a Device (Molly Muldoon). Read Conroy on his father: Eulogy for a Fighter Pilot
View: excerpts from the movie version of The Prince of Tides (1991), filmed in South Carolina
Refreshments: Molly Muldoon10 April Projects Presentations: Brown, Cooney, Denton, Foster, Fultz, Jones; Muldoon
Refreshments: Lindsey Jones17 April Projects Presentations: Lonon, Madden, Poland, Sirko, Torres, Tunmore
Refreshments: Kristen Poland; Anna Lonon24 April Final Exam
Julian Wiles is the founder and artistic director of the Charleston Stage Company, based in the historic Dock Street Theater in Charleston. He is the author of numerous plays, including Gershwin at Folly, about the making of Porgy and Bess, Seat of Justice, about the Plessy v. Ferguson segregation case, and Nevermore!, about the last days of Edgar Allan Poe
Barbara Bellows Rockefeller is a former professor of history at Middlebury College. In addition to other books and articles on the south, she recently authored A Talent for Living: Josephine Pinckney and the Charleston Literary Tradition. She lives in New York and Charleston. Harlan Greene is a novelist, archivist, and book collector who is currently the special collections director of the Avery Institute for Research in African American Studies at the College of Charleston. His most recent book is the novel, The German Officer's Boy, published by the History Press in 2006. Josephine Humphreys is the PEN/Hemingway award-winning author of Dreams of Sleep, Rich in Love, The Fireman's Fair, and numerous other novels. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and has taught at numerous colleges and universities, including Davidson and the University of North Carolina. William Baldwin is a writer based in McClellanville, South Carolina. The Hard to Catch Mercy was hailed by the New York Times as "the best southern novel of the time." Baldwin also collaborated with Emily Whaley on the now-classic Mrs. Whaley's Garden. Mary Alice Monroe is a novelist and passionate advocate for environmental issues, some of which inspired her best-selling novel, The Beach House. She is the author of numerous novels set in the contemporary coastal south.
| Sam Stoney: Charleston Raconteur (Drew Denton) | Alfred Hutty and the Rise of Landscape Etching |
| Charleston Receipts: An American Classic (Dianne Foster) | Murder on Market Street: A Charleston Tale (Anna Lonon) |
| Charleston: Birthplace of American Golf (Merrick Fultz) | Piracy and Pirate Narratives (Kristen Poland) |
| Sweetgrass: A Cultural History (Lindsey Jones) | Friendly Societies in Charleston History |
| Rebecca Motte: A Revolutionary Heroine | The Many Ages of Hampton Park (Shannon Madden) |
| Prostitution and Vice in the Holy City (Courtney Tunmore) | Ambrose Gonzales and the "Discovery" of the Gullah |
| Irish Charleston (Kelley Sirko) | Hispanic Charleston |
| The Case of Mr. Lewisohn: A Jewish Writer in Charleston |
Sing About the South: The Spirituals Society (April Brown) |
| Passers-By: Edward Hopper and Childe Hassam Do Charleston (Molly Muldoon) |
Charlestonians in Hollywood: Heyward,
Dwight Franklin, and Clements Ripley |
| Isle of Palms: A History (Michelle Torres) | Praise Houses of the Lowcountry (Emily Cooney) |
| Look Back to Glory: The Art of Alice R. H. Smith |
The Second Charleston Renaissance:
Gething; Molloy; Sprunt, Smith, and others |
Selected Bibliography
Allen, Louise. A Bluestocking in Charleston: The Life and Career of Laura Bragg. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2001.
Alpert, Hollis. The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess. NY: Knopf, 1989.
Ball, Edward. The Sweet Hell Inside: A Family History. NY: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2001.
Ball, Edward. Peninsula of Lies.
Bellows, Barbara L. A Talent for Living: Josephine Pinckney and the Charleston Literary Tradition. LSU Press, 2006.
Bennett, John. The Doctor to the Dead—Grotesque Legends and Folktales of Old Charleston. 1946. Rpt. Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1995.
Bland, Sidney. Preserving Charleston’s Past, Shaping Its Future: The Life and Time of Susan Pringle Frost. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1999.
Fraser, Walter J., Jr., Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City. Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1989
Greene, Harlan. Mr. Skylark: John Bennett and the Charleston Renaissance. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2001.
_____. "Ned Jennings." Charleston 2007.
Hanna, Elizabeth. "Dorothy Heyward's Autobiography." M.A. Thesis. The College of Charleston, 2005.
Heyward, DuBose. Mamba's Daughters. 1929. Rpt. Columbia: Univ of South Carolina Press, 1995.
Heyward, DuBose. Porgy. Foreword by Dorothy Heyward. Afterword by James M. Hutchisson. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Hobson, Fred. Serpent in Eden: H. L. Mencken and the South. LSU Press, 1974.
Hutchisson, James M. and Harlan Greene. Renaissance in Charleston: Life and Art in the Carolina Lowcountry, 1920-1940. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2003.
Hutchisson, James M. A DuBose Heyward Reader. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 2003.
_____. DuBose Heyward: A Charleston Gentleman and the World of Porgy and Bess. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2000.
_____. "A Long Pull to Get There: The Life and Hard Times of Porgy and Bess." Charleston Magazine May/June 2001, pp. 89-91.
_____. "Dorothy Heyward: In The Shadow of Porgy." Carologue Summer 1999, p. 3.
_____. "A Well-Lived Life: Josephine Humphreys." Charleston 21.14 (Nov. 2007), pp. 000-000.
_____. “Herbert Ravenel Sass.” Charleston 21.13 (Oct. 2007), pp. 000-00.
_____. “Setting the Stage: Charleston’s Theatrical Arts.” Charleston 21.6 (May 2007), pp. 100-07._____. “Building on the Past: Architect Albert Simons.” Charleston 21.4 (March 2007), pp. 92-97.
_____. "The Rites of St. Cecelia." Charleston 20.3 (March 2006), pp. 118-125.
_____. “Of Mortar and Memory: Susan Pringle Frost and Charleston’s Preservation Heritage” Charleston 19.13 (Nov. 2005), pp. 122-31.
_____. "Impressing Charleston: Elizabeth O'Neill Verner." Charleston 19.6 (May 2005), pp. 122-131.
_____. "The Cradle of Jazz: The Jenkins Orphanage Band." Charleston 19.5 (Apr. 2005), pp. 116-125.
_____. "Joie De Vivre: Josephine Pinckney" Charleston 19.4 (March 2005), pp. 74-76.
_____. "Handmaidens of History: The Pollitzer Sisters." Charleston 19.1 (Jan/Feb 2005), 98-107.
_____. "The Invisible Artist: The Life and Times of E. A. Harleston." Charleston 18.4 (May 2004), pp. 86-93.
_____. "The Era of Expression: Charleston’s Literary Renaissance." Charleston 18.1 (Jan/Feb 2004), pp. 76-83.
Pinckney, Josephine. Three o’Clock Dinner. With an Introduction by Barbara L. Bellows. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2001.
Powers, Bernard E., Jr., Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885. Univ. of Arkansas Press, 1994.
Saunders, Boyd and Ann McAden. Alfred Hutty and the Charleston Renaissance. Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing Co., 1990.
Severens, Martha. The Charleston Renaissance. Spartanburg, SC: Saraland Press, 1998.
Yuhl, Stephanie. A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston. Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2005.
Williams, Susan Millar. A Devil and a Good Woman, Too: The Lives of Julia Peterkin. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1997.
Online
The South Carolina Historical Society
South Carolina Room of the Charleston County Public Library
The Avery Center for Research in African American History
The Charleston Renaissance Gallery
"ArtChive: The Charleston Renaissance"
Upcoming Events
June 27 ~ June 29, 2008
The Island Heritage Festival: a 3-day celebration of 10 programs honoring the history and culture of African Americans' "Gullah People." (www.islandheritagefestival.com)
May 23 - June 8, 2008
"Literary Conversations" series at Piccolo Spoleto Festival USA
Nov. 8-10, 2008
Penn Center Island Heritage Days, St. Helena Island, SC
Fall 2008
"Gershwin at Folly" at the historic Dock Street Theater
