Welcome  to

a traditional approach

Ananse, Hare, and Tortoise

by      

Dr. Laura C. Jarmon, Professor

[731-587-7291;7300][ljarmon@utm.edu]

Department of English

130H Humanities Building

The University of Tennessee at Martin

Martin, TN 38238

Education

Ph.D. in Linguistics, The Catholic University of America, 1987

A.B.D. in Afro-American Literature, Howard University, 1983

M.A. in Education, Fisk University, 1975

B.A. in English, Howard University, 1972

Publications

1994 Arbors to Bricks: A Hundred Years of African American Education in Rutherford County,Tennessee, 1865 to 1965. Murfreesboro:MTSU School of Continuing Studies and the Tennessee Humanities Council, 1994.

1993 Thomas Talley’s The Negro Traditions, eds. Charles W. Wolf and Laura C. Jarmon. UT Press.

Presentations

2001 "Modality in Black Folk Expression" American Folklore Society, Anchorage, Alaska

2001 "Evasion and Deferral in Black Folk Speech" College English Association, Memphis, Tn

2001 "Black Idiom, Rap, and the Last Poets" Governor’s School, UT Martin

2000 "The Grotesque in Petry’s The Street" Jackson/Madison County Library, "Let’s Talk"

2000 "The Censorship of Huck Finn" [panelist] First Amendment Ctr—Vanderbilt U

2000 "The Flying Africans..." Lecture, UT Martin, English Writing Center, February

1999 "Mythic Mood in Traditional Black Medicine" Lecture, MTSU Honors Lyceum, March

1998 "Old Time Story and History" Black History Month, Putnam County Historical Society

1997 Student Focus Grps. Organized and conducted for Internship: Retention

1996 Lecture, TSU Saturday Academy:Teaching and Learning African American History;

1995 Radio Interv., WMOT with Shawn Jacobs on Arbors to Bricks

1995 Radio Interv., WPLN "Coffee Break" with Rebecca Bain, on Arbors to Bricks

Teaching

Curriculum development

2000 ENGL 495 – "Multicultural Literature of the United States"

Service

2002 Project Director, "Allen White, A Rosenwald Built School—Its Restoration"

2001 Board Member, TN Humanities Council

2001 Equity and Diversity Advisory Council (2 year term)

2000-present, American Folklore Society

2000-present, College English Association

1988-pres. Tennessee Folklore Society

Courses at UT Martin

English 345/545 Black Writers in America 3 credits Wednesday 3 - 5:50p

TEXT Gates, Jr., Henry, Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. African American Literature. New York: Norton, 1997.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course focuses upon selected African American authors and their work. Especially, the course has the goal of acclimating students to major genres and arguments representing the development of black American literature. Early genres such as autobiography via the slave narrative and later genres such as the novel both impute literary art as a problematic for both the artist and the critic. The works and controversies about the status of black art mirror the growth of African American voice and presence. The course includes literary art and critical theory spanning the period from slavery to the present, as represented in selected works.

English 320 Introduction to Linguistics 3 credits Wednesday 3 -5:50

TEXT Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Mary Louise Pratt. Linguistics for Students of Literature.New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1980.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course presents linguistics as the study of phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics in language form and use. Major scholars studying language and discourse reflect analysis of and arguments about the referential property and values in language. In addition, linguistic study undergirds modern literary critical movements and approaches, as with, for instance, structuralist and deconstructionist applications. The goal of such a course is to gain ability to name linguistic properties establishing text as discourse.

English 341/541 Topics in American Lit before 1900 3 credits Wednesday 3 - 5:50

TEXTS

Chesnutt, Charles W. The Marrow of Tradition

Irving, Washington. The Sketch Book

Kaplain, Justin, ed. Mark Twain's

Melville, Herman. Billy Budd

Poe, Edgar Allen. The Fall of the House of Usher

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course focuses upon selected early American authors and their work. Especially, the course has the goal of acclimating students to major genres and arguments representing the development of American literature. Early forms such as legend and frame narrative and later genres such as the novel and short story (in the gothic mode and in realism and humor) impute literary art as a problematic for both the artist and the critic. America had to develop an American voice unique to the place and culture. This course includes literary art and critical theory spanning the period from Dutch settlement to the 1900s, as represented in selected works.

English 111 Composition 3 credits Tuesday and Thursday

TEXTS

Arp, Thomas R. Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

Fowler, H. Ramsey, and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York: Longman, 1998.

laGuardia, Delores, and Hans P. Guth. American Voices: Culture and Community. California: Mayfield, 1998.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is a first-semester English composition course designed to introduce to students "the fundamentals of written discourse," including also "Study of rhetoric, grammar, and style as means to effective prose." This course includes readings in contemporary ideas as well as literary and cultural studies, as thought-provoking subjects for written and oral discussion.

English 112 Composition 3 credits Tuesday and Thursday

TEXTS

Arp, Thomas R. Perrine’s Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

Fowler, H. Ramsey, and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York: Longman, 2001 (8th edition).

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is a second-semester English composition course designed to introduce to students "the fundamentals of written discourse," including also "Study of rhetoric, grammar, and style as means to effective prose." This course includes literary study for written and oral discussion.

English 250 British Literary Tradition 3 credits Tuesday and Thursday

TEXTS

Abrams, M. H. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th edition. New York: Norton, 1993. Volume 1.

Fowler, H. Ramsey, and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York: Longman, 1998.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is a first-semester English literature and composition course designed to introduce to students readings in contemporary ideas as well as literary and cultural studies, as thought-provoking subjects for written and oral discussion.

English 261 American Literary Tradition 3 credits Tuesday and Thursday

TEXT

Baym, Nina, ed. Norton Anthology of American Literature, II. New York, WW Norton, 1998.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is a second-semester American literature and composition course designed to introduce to students readings in contemporary ideas, readings in masterpieces, as well as literary and cultural studies, as thought-provoking subjects for written and oral discussion.

English 495/695 Multicultural Literature of the U.S. 3 credits

TEXTS

Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown, and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. eds. Redefining American Literary History. NY:MLA, 1990.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. NY:Plume, 1991.

Baldwin, James. If Beale Street Could Talk. NY: Laurell, 1974.

Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. NY:Harper, 1968.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. NY:Vintage, 1989.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course addresses a gap in the study of literatures typically limited to the Western canon. The course covers what is generally referred to as marginalized texts--works by America’s minority-status writers. The course seeks to introduce to the student primary and secondary works of four ethnic group: Native American, African Aemrican, Hispanic American, and Asian American. We want to emphasize the cultural dynamism and integrity of works by these writers.

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