9:05A-9:55A  MWF  (30) 3 cr
Topic:  Indiana's Authors

To clear up the ambiguity in the title: this course will not discuss the members of the
Indiana University faculty, in one department or many, present or past, who have published
books.  Rather, it is an introduction to the literary culture of the State of Indiana, with an
emphasis on those writers born in or associated with the state and widely known and read
beyond its borders.

Particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Indiana writers were celebrated
for their number and popularity.  A survey of books on national best-seller lists between 1895
and 1945 showed that Indiana was second only to New York--and a very close second at that--in
numbers.  And this, the surveyor also pointed out, from a state with roughly one-quarter the
population of its competitors.  More important than the numbers, though, are the topics and
values in those books that drew readers to them.  In an age of increasing industrialization, of
erosion of farm and village life and the glittering expansion of the cities, of widening gaps in
income and social prominence, Indiana writers spoke for a simpler, more humane, less
competitive world.  Even writers of very modern temperament--like Theodore Dreiser, who
couldn't wait to flee Indiana poverty, like Kurt Vonnegut, who thinks the whole world has
gone crazy--build on that core of Indiana values.

We'll get a sense of the literary history of Indiana and its values by reading in the
works of selected authors.  The list will include poetry by James Whitcomb Riley, novels
(some of them juvenile and some of them adult fiction) by Edward Eggleston, Lew Wallace,
Gene Stratton-Porter, Booth Tarkington, Dreiser, and Vonnegut, and sketches of Indiana
character and history by Maurice Thompson, George Ade, and a contemporary (and IU faculty
member), Scott Sanders.  The class will proceed by lecture and discussion.  Related events
will include a look at the collection of the original publications of these and other authors in
the collections of the Lilly Rare Book Library and a bus excursion to Crawfordsville, the
center of literary culture in 19th-century Indiana.  Students will write three short essays, one
of them focused on historical research, and a series of short-response papers on study
questions.  No exams.