Allen Ginsberg and Ai Weiwei, 1988
We are thrilled to be able to share part of Dan S. Wang‘s forthcoming project, ‘Falling In’, here. We hope you can join us in Philadelphia on February 13 at Asian Arts Initiative for the ‘Falling In’ workshop and panel discussion. Details of both events can be found by clicking here and by reading the full project description posted here.
Reading List for FALLING IN: A Course in American Countercultures for Students from China
Build your course of readings with advisement from the instructor. Pick between five and fifteen.
Titles include the sleazy, mystical, topical, personal, historical, sociological, and experimental. There is science fiction, young adult lit, poetry, essays, comics, plays, memoirs, musical biographies, nature writing, political writing, drug writing, slave narrative, immigrant narrative, catalogs, writing about religion, and a few rare titles. The list is a window and idiosyncratic guide to the America outside of football, Hollywood, big business and the military. Most of these titles have earned some renown, but not all. The entries are alphabetized by first name of author for reasons of genre and stature flattening. The majority of titles are from the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. There are 
some classics from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and a handful from the 21st. All authors are American, by nationality and/or residence. The 313 entries are for the 313 area code, the Detroit-Ann Arbor axis that produced some of the greatest countercultural energy ever witnessed in America, and the home of two Chinese Americans, Vincent Chin and Grace Lee Boggs, whose respective death and life helped to shape modern Asian America.
- A. J. Muste, The Essays of A. J. Muste
- Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book
- Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck
- Adrienne Rich, The Fact of a Doorframe
- Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born
- Ai Ogawa, Killing Floor
- Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
- Alexander Berkman, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
- Alexander Berkman, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism
- Alice Bag, Violence Girl
- Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
- Allen Ginsberg, The Fall of America
- Allen Ginsberg, Deliberate Prose
- Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
- Allison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature
- Amok Books, Amok Fourth Dispatch
- Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma
- Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance
- Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
- Angela Davis, Women, Race, & Class
- Angelo and Temporary Services, Prisoners’ Inventions
- Ann Bannon, Odd Girl Out
- Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul Ehrlich, The End of Affluence: A Blueprint for Your Future
- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
- Anonymous/Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice
- Antler, Last Words
- Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
- Audre Lorde, Coal
- Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
- August Wilson, Fences
- August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
- Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class
- Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision
- Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
- Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
- Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men
- Bayard Rustin, My Life in Letters
- Becky Birtha, For Nights Like This One
- bell hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
- Bernard Karsh, Diary of a Strike
- Berke Breathed, Toons for Our Times
- Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Jeff Jones, eds., Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiques of the Weather Underground 1970-1974
- Bill Holm, Coming Home Crazy
- Bill Hutton, A History of America
- Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. I
- Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves
- C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
- Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men
- Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart…..
Full reading list and syllabus can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
DanSWang_FallingIn_SyllabusAndReadingList
