Topic: Baseball and the American Imagination
| Time | Days | Location | Instructor | GER | Credit | OPUS Class Number | Syllabus (Tentative) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
11:30am- | TuTh | Candler Library 120 | William Gruber. Dana White. | HAPW. | 4 | 3972 | TBA. |
Content: Baseball has captured the collective memory and imagination of Americans far more deeply than any other sport. Bearing witness to its central place within American culture, scores of individual writers and film makers have been fascinated by the game and the men--and, occasionally, the women--who have played it. In this class we will study baseball and its players as they have been represented for more than a century in literature and in films. We will seek to discover ongoing themes, ideas, and motifs in the artistic record of baseball, and we will try as well to gain insight into a game that more than any other expresses the mind and heart of America.
Texts: Jeff Silverman, ed., The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told; Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer; Bernard Malamud, The Natural; Lawrence Ritter, The Glory of Their Times; S. L. Price, Heart of the Game; Joe Posnanski, The Soul of Baseball; W. P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe; Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy; Leigh Montville, The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth.
Films: Field of Dreams; Bull Durham; The Natural; The Sandlot; A League of their Own.
Particulars: Class sessions will primarily build on a dialogue among the students and the two instructors. Students will write two short personal essays (2-3 pages), two longer critical papers (5-7 pages), and be expected to participate actively in Blackboard Wikis and all class meetings.
The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.