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Approaches to Teaching Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer"
Editor(s): Hunt Hawkins, Brian W. Shaffer
Pages: xiii & 195 pp.
Published: 2003
ISBN: 9780873529037
"The essays are well chosen, practical, and remarkably personal. They show instructors dealing with a range of students in a variety of course types. A very useful volume that addresses the needs of these widely taught, difficult, seminal works."
Raymond Brebach, Drexel University
The casebound edition of this title is out of print.
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer" are among the most taught and studied works of twentieth-century British fiction. Noted for their psychological depth and stylistic artistry, the two stories have been celebrated as exemplars of modernism. They have also given rise to controversy. Scholars have debated whether "Heart of Darkness" is a critique of British imperialism or a paean to it. In 1975, Chinua Achebe condemned the novella's author as racist, a charge that has provoked much discussion.
This volume, like others in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature, is divided into two parts. Part 1, "Materials," gives editions, criticism, and resources available to the instructor of these two complex texts. Part 2, "Approaches," contains essays that treat historical contexts, such as slavery and the ivory trade in the Congo of the 1890s; examine literary issues, such as Conrad's use of the unreliable narrator; discuss the place of gender and race in the stories; tell of students' responses in a variety of public and private institutions; and explore specific pedagogical methods, including the use of films such as Coppola's Apocalypse Now in the classroom.
Table of Contents
Approaches to Teaching Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer"
Part 1: Materials
Hunt Hawkins
Editions
"Heart of Darkness"
"The Secret Sharer"
Reference Works
Bibliographies
Biographical Sources
Readings for Students and Teachers
Background Studies
Critical Commentary
Audiovisual Aids
The Stories (Film Adaptations)
The Author
Part 2: Approaches
Introduction
Brian W. Shaffer
Teaching Social Contexts and Literary Issues
Conrad, Slavery, and the African Ivory Trade in the 1890s
Ray Stevens
Conrad and the Adventure Tradition
Andrea White
Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts for Teaching "Heart of Darkness"
John A. McClure
Conrad and Professionalism
Jeffrey J. Williams
Teaching "Heart of Darkness" after New Historicism
Mark A. Eaton
Exploring Characterization in "Heart of Darkness"
Avrom Fleishman
The Role of Marlow's Nellie Audience in "Heart of Darkness"
Brian W. Shaffer
"He Was Not a Bit like Me, Really": Narrators and Audiences in "The Secret Sharer"
Brian Richardson
Creating a Second Self: Transference as Narrative Form in "The Secret Sharer"
Daniel Schwarz
Teaching the Controversies
"Heart of Darkness" and Others
Marianne DeKoven
Women's Caring and Men's Secret Sharing: Constructions of Gender and Sexuality in "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Sharer"
Carola M. Kaplan
Why I Teach Conrad and Achebe
Padmini Mongia
Conrad and the N Word: Responding to the Sensitivities and Politics of the Contemporary Classroom
Joseph F. Militello
A Choice of Nightmares: Reading "Heart of Darkness" through Apocalypse Now
Margot Norris
Specific Courses
Teaching "The Secret Sharer" at the United States Naval Academy
Mark D. Larabee
Teaching "Heart of Darkness" in a Western Civilization or Humanities Core Course
William M. Hagen
Teaching "Heart of Darkness" in a Seminar on Modernism and Postmodernism
Philip M. Weinstein
Teaching "Heart of Darkness" across Disciplinary Boundary Lines
Barry Stampfl
Teaching "Heart of Darkness" in a Creative Writing Class
Janet Burroway
Luminous Spaces: Teaching "Heart of Darkness" through Film
Mark Osteen
Works Cited
Index
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