FALL
2007 HONORS COURSES
HONR 298E Literary Prizes and
Their Controversies
Tuesday/Thursday 11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Dr. Ingrid Satelmajer, Lecturer in University Honors
What standards are used to award literary prizes? Who
gets left out when someone else wins? What are the risks that accompany
awards? What makes a prize winner a hero rather than a villain (or a
hero in some circles and a villain in others)?
In 1970, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Literature for his writing that exposed and criticized the
inner workings of the Soviet regime. The award, viewed as a politically
charged act by the Soviet government, came after the official suppression
of Solzhenitsyn’s writing and his being expelled from the Writers’ Union.
He couldn’t attend an official award ceremony until after he was exiled
from the Soviet Union in 1974.
In 2003, Stephen King received the Distinguished Contribution
to American Letters Award. The bestselling author, arguably “rewarded”
already by the money earned from his books, was a controversial choice.
King far from ducked the controversy in his acceptance speech, publicly
challenging readers and award-granting bodies to “build bridges between
the popular and the literary . . . .”
The cases of Solzhenitsyn and King offer dramatically
different examples of how the history of modern literary prizes (e.g.,
the Nobel, the Pulitzer, and the National Book Award) is fraught with
controversy. This course will consider literary texts in the context
of such controversies, highlighting issues such as censorship, originality/plagiarism,
standards for aesthetic judgments, and the mixed motives of industries
and bodies that grant such awards. We’ll examine controversies surrounding
famous authors who have been awarded prestigious prizes (Stephen King,
Ezra Pound, Alexander Solzhenitsyn), as well as the controversies accompanying
books that have been excluded from prizes (Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?, Beloved [later an award recipient], Portnoy’s Complaint). And
we’ll end with a brief history of modern literary hoaxes—books that
have been awarded prizes only to be unmasked later as frauds.
In addition to common course readings, each student
will research a specific prize controversy surrounding a modern literary
text, choosing from prize-winning texts that have been decried as pornographic,
dismissed as fraudulent . . . and/or lauded as courageous. Grades will
be based on daily work, one short paper, one project presentation, and
a final project.
Tentative books:
Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Sarah Shun-lien Bayum, Madeleine is Sleeping
Stephen King, Carrie
Toni Morrison, Beloved
Ezra Pound, The Pisan Cantos
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Tobias Wolff, Old School
CORE: Literature [HL]
