Evans and Bergin:
<< I'm putting together an undergraduate course in the
spring to be titled
>AMERICAN
>NOIR: FICTION AND FILM. I had done a version in the
past that
>concentrated on hardboiled detectives but want to
expand the options a
>bit. I would appreciate any suggestions that anyone
might have offlist.
>So far, RED HARVEST and BIG CLOCK are the only
titles I think are sure.
>I'm also considering the second Library of
America
>volume, on the '50's, with Thompson, Willeford,
Himes et al.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jeff Evans
Oh, Jesus, another academic who doesn't know what he's
doing setting out to
infect the minds of those who may, without such
interference, develop a
rational facility. Give it up!
If you don't KNOW the literature you propose to TEACH,
what good are you?
If you have to ask us (how many of us do you know
personally? are we
experts, dilettantes, or merely 12-year olds with some
time to kill?) to
suggest course reading, how equipped are you to teach
ANY course?
>>
My response drifts off topic a bit. First, even if responses
to the Evans' query might not produce a good course, readers
of the list might be interested in what list participants
suggest--thus no reason to stifle responses. Second, on
teaching what you don't know: it is true that teachers at all
levels teach material they don't know very well.
Nevertheless, the class isn't until the Spring, which gives
some time to prepare. In addition, it could be that the
instructor has some other area of expertise--rise of
urbanism, new deal politics, or some such. The course might
just be a freshman thematic class where expertise is not even
necessarily wanted. Students and teachers sometimes have a
good experience when the teacher is in the middle of a
learning process too. I know one professor at one of the
nation's distinguished colleges who almost always teaches one
book that he has not read--and only reads it as the students
read. Education is not just the dissemination of
expertise.
Not in the teaching business, Doug
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