Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-254) and index.
Contents:
Heading out: the literary and journalistic documentary tradition of social observation: the call to venture outside of what we know, and attend the stories of others. Featured: James Agee, George Orwell, and William Carlos Williams -- When strangers meet: meeting so-called ordinary American working class men and women: courage, challenge, kindness and complexity in everyday living. Featured: the old ones of New Mexico, Raymond Carver, Edward Hopper, Tillie Olsen, and Ruby Bridges -- A storytelling humanity: ways of seeing race and identity: viewing encounters through the eyes of others and finding grace. Featured: Ralph Ellison, Flannery O'Connor, Zora Neal Hurston -- Bringing it home: intellectuals and the religious search: finding meaning in the life given to us with stories as our guide. Featured: Dorothy Day, John Cheever, Walker Percy, Simone Weil, and a potato chip truck -- Boundaries and breakthroughs: finding simple clarity amidst moral, psychological and social complexity. Featured: Paul Gauguin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot -- Afterword: a course's history -- A reading list for life: the syllabus from the Harvard course, "A literature of social reflection".
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.