Approaches to Teaching Cather's My Ántonia
Editor(s): Susan J. Rosowski
Pages: xii & 194 pp.
Published: 1989
ISBN: 9780873525206 (paperback)
ISBN: 9780873525190 (hardcover)
"A useful resource both for instructors using Cather's Nebraska novel for the first time and for those who seek a fresh perspective. Edited by Susan J. Rosowski, a widely recognized Cather scholar and professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, this volume explores the many ways to 'get at' one of the most frequently taught Cather novels.... The quality of this collection is consistently high."
Journal of the West
Unlike many other great works of English literature, My Ántonia is immediately accessible to today's students. "Cather's novel is so clear," Susan J. Rosowski says, "so apparently effortless, that it hardly seems art at all, and the challenge for instructors is to move their students beyond a surface reading to an understanding of the novel's art and its place in literary history." Yet few instructors have had training in fields relating to Cather studies. The aim of this collection of essays, then, is to provide background and ideas instructors have found most helpful in teaching My Ántonia.
This volume, like others in the MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, is divided into two parts. The first part, "Materials," reviews required and recommended student reading, reference works, background studies, and critical commentary. In the second part, "Approaches," twenty-five teachers share their strategies for presenting the novel in the classroom; their essays are arranged in four sections that focus on Cather's life and times, the novel's literary and philosophical traditions, teaching the novel in particular courses, and, finally, exploring specific aspects of the novel.
Table of Contents
Approaches to Teaching Cather's My Ántonia
PART 1: MATERIALS
Susan J. Rosowski
Editions
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Required and Recommended Student Reading
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Other Writings by Cather
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Biographical Studies
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Criticism
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The Instructor's Library
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Reference Works
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General Background
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Biographical Studies
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Critical Commentary
Aids to Teaching
PART 2: APPROACHES
Teaching the Life and Times
Immigrant Backgrounds to My Ántonia: "A Curious Social Situation in Black Hawk"
Sally Allen McNall
Willa Cather's Nebraska
Robert W. Cherny
The Making and Reception of My Ántonia
James Woodress
The People, the Place, and the Times: A Lexicon for My Ántonia
Philip L. Gerber
Teaching the Literary and Philosophical Traditions
My Ántonia as Pastoral
David Stouck
My Ántonia as Plains Epic
Paul A. Olson
The Romanticism of My Ántonia: Every Reader's Story
Susan J. Rosowski
The Place of My Ántonia in Women's Literary Traditions
Josephine Donovan
Biblical and Religious Dimensions of My Ántonia
John J. Murphy
William James, Henri Bergson, and Remembered Time in My Ántonia
Loretta Wasserman
Teaching Specific Courses
My Ántonia in a Survey of the American Novel
Tom Quirk
My Ántonia in Women's Studies: Pioneer Women and Men--The Myth and the Reality
Mary Anne Ferguson
My Ántonia in American Studies: History, Landscape, and Memory
Barbara Bair
My Ántonia in the Freshman Writing Class
Jennifer Bradley
Teaching My Ántonia to Adults: An Interdisciplinary Approach in a Community College
Constance Mierendorf
Teaching My Ántonia as a Plains Novel
Robert Thacker
Teaching My Ántonia to Non-English Majors from Spanish-Speaking Homes
James L. Evans
Teaching Specific Aspects
Art and Apparent Artlessness: Self-Reflexivity in My Ántonia
Blanche H. Gelfant
My Ántonia as Double Bildungsroman
Charlotte Goodman
Gender, Sexuality, and Point of View: Teaching My Ántonia from a Feminist Perspective
Sharon O'Brien
Jim Burden: A Rare Modern
Glen A. Love
The Doctrine of the Open Road in My Ántonia
Paul Comeau
Kindling the Imagination: The Inset Stories of My Ántonia
Michael Peterman
Teaching the Illustrations to My Ántonia
Jean Schwind
The Functional Beauty of Style in My Ántonia
Stephen Tatum
Works Consulted
Index
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