‘Falling In’ with Dan S. Wang

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.

1. A. J. Muste, The Essays of A. J. Muste
2. Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book
3. Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck
4. Adrienne Rich, The Fact of a Doorframe
5. Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born
6. Ai Ogawa, Killing Floor
7. Alan Watts, The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
8. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
9. Alexander Berkman, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
10. Alexander Berkman, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism
11. Alice Bag, Violence Girl
12. Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
13. Allen Ginsberg, The Fall of America
14. Allen Ginsberg, Deliberate Prose
15. Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
16. Allison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature
17. Amok Books, Amok Fourth Dispatch
18. Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma
19. Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance
20. Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
21. Angela Davis, Women, Race, & Class
22. Angelo and Temporary Services, Prisoners’ Inventions
23. Ann Bannon, Odd Girl Out
24. Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul Ehrlich, The End of Affluence: A Blueprint for Your Future
25. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
26. Anonymous/Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice
27. Antler, Last Words
28. Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
29. Audre Lorde, Coal
30. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
31. August Wilson, Fences
32. August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
33. Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class
34. Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision
35. Barbara Smith, ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
36. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
37. Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men
38. Bayard Rustin, My Life in Letters
39. Becky Birtha, For Nights Like This One
40. bell hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
41. Bernard Karsh, Diary of a Strike
42. Berke Breathed, Toons for Our Times
43. Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Jeff Jones, eds., Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiques of the Weather Underground 1970-1974
44. Bill Holm, Coming Home Crazy
45. Bill Hutton, A History of America
46. Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol. I
47. Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves
48. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
49. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men
50. Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart…..

Full reading list and syllabus can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.

DanSWang_FallingIn_SyllabusAndReadingList