Syllabus | 19th-Cent American Lit

Emily Dickinson Syllabus

Submitted by Karen J. Sanchez-Eppler on Monday, 1/25/2010, at 10:56 AM

Karen Sánchez-Eppler English 62

Office Hours: Monday 2-5 Tuesdays

Office: 101 Morgan Hall

e-mail: kjsanchezepp@amherst.edu

Emily Dickinson

Spring 2010

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is rich in what she called “illocality.” Her writing characteristically dissolves images and refuses all specificity of place or event, and yet no writer is more intimately connected to a single particular place. Dickinson wrote almost all of her poems within this one house on Main Street, in Amherst. We will have the extraordinary opportunity to read these poems here, to study both her individual life and her practices of literary expression in the place where she lived and wrote and with access to many of the artifacts and records of family and local history. We will study Dickinson’s biography, her poetic practices, and her historical context. In exploring the social and political situation of her poetry we will pay particular attention to local materials and history. Once renovations on the Homestead ceilings are finished we will be able to use space in the Emily Dickinson Museum for our regular course meetings; in any event course work will include developing programming materials for the museum.

Course Work

Museum Programming: A central goal of this course is to develop materials to enhance programming at the Emily Dickinson Museum. You will each be involved in a historical research project to develop new material for the Museum website and/or for the “Celebrating Emily Dickinson’s Words” events to be held at the Jones Library on April 10^th. Most of these projects will be undertaken with a partner. We will also provide documentary support for the April celebration. You will find a list of museum projects at the end of the syllabus.

Presentations: Beginning the week of February 16^th you will each be responsible for an oral presentation identifying a characteristic strategy of Dickinson’s poetry. This is a small working seminar and class participation and more informal presentations are expected throughout the semester.

Essays: There are three formal papers required for this course. Two short papers one due March 2^nd will explore Dickinson’s poetic practice in a single poem, and one due April 20^th will look at literary contexts for reading Dickinson’s poetry. The final, somewhat longer paper (10 pages), will be on a topic of your own devising and should entail some independent research as well as attention to Dickinson’s poetry, due May 15^th. It is perfectly fine for this final essay to develop out of work done in earlier essays, in your poetic strategy presentation, or for a museum project.

Class Meetings: In order to make good use of local resources this class will often meet in different places in Amherst. Make sure to check the syllabus each day to see where we will be. I have also put on the syllabus lectures and performances sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum, and if at all possible you are expected to attend them.

Book List

Course readings not already available on-line, are marked by an asterisk (*) in the syllabus and collected in a course reader available at the English Department office in 1 Johnson Chapel. A small fee will be added to your college bill to pay for this material. Readings from the Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson edited by Wendy Martin and A Companion to Emily Dickinson edited by Mary Loeffelholz and Martha Nell Smith are available as e-books from the Amherst library. The syllabus contains links to these texts and to other readings available online through the College’s journal subscriptions. The following books are required reading for this course, and are available for purchase at Amherst Books:

R. W. Franklin ed., The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition (Harvard, 1999) 0674018249

Thomas Johnson ed., Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters (Harvard, 1958) 0674250702

Polly Longsworth, The World of Emily Dickinson (Norton, 1990) 0393316564

Gudrun Grabher, Roland Hagenbuchle and Cristanne Miller eds, The Emily Dickinson Handbook, (UMASS, 2005) 155849488X

William Luce, The Belle of Amherst (Samuel French, 1991) 057363033X

Sheila Coghill and Thom Tammaro, eds. Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson (University of Iowa Press, 2001) 0877457395

On-line Resources

Emily Dickinson Museum

Jones Library Digital Amherst and Dickinson Collection

Emily Dickinson Lexicon

Poems of Emily Dickinson, First, Second, and Third Series

Catalog of Dickinson Manuscripts at Amherst College

Image Database of Dickinson Manuscripts at Amherst College

Radical Scatters

The Poets’ Corner

Syllabus

“To be alive -- is Power”

Tuesday January 26^th: an introduction to some tools for reading Dickinson’s poetry

Poems

F333 Many a phrase has the English Language–

F772 Essential oils are wrung

F304 The maddest dream–recedes–unrealized

F801 As sleigh bells seem in summer

F1356 A Little Madness in the Spring

F 1469 A chilly peace

F 1478 One note from One Bird

F1494 “Secrets” is a daily word

F1560 There comes a warning like a spy

F 1564 The things that never can come back

Chocolat Meunier wrapper

Visit Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Tuesday February 2^nd: an introduction to Dickinson’s life and family

Meet at the Emily Dickinson Museum on Main Street

Read the Biography and Timeline sections of the Emily Dickinson Museum website

Martha Ackmann, “Biographical Studies of Dickinson” Handbook 11-26

Polly Longworth, The World of Emily Dickinson

*Adrienne Rich essay, “Vesuvius at Home; The Power of Emily Dickinson” from On Lies Secrets and Silence, 157-183

Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters, pages 1-42

Poems

F410 The Soul selects her own Society

F466 I dwell in Possibility

F473 I was the slightest in the House

F709 Me from Myself–to banish–

F747 It’s easy to invent a Life–

F764 My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun

F876 To be alive–is Power–

F1174 Alone and in a circumstance (look at Amherst manuscript 129)

F1263 Tell all the truth but tell it slant (look at Amherst manuscript 372)

F1691 Volcanoes be in Sicily

Tuesday February 9^th: placing Dickinson

Visit to the Jones Library, Special Collections and the Amherst History Museum. Meet in front of the library on Amity Street

Browse in Digital Amherst focusing on the 19^th century

Read the context sections of the Emily Dickinson Museum website

Jane Eberwein, “Dickinson’s Local, Global, and Cosmic Perspectives” Handbook

Domhnall Mitchell, “Emily Dickinson and Class,”

Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson, on line 191-214

Read one of the essays on Dickinson and the Civil War (Bergland, Barrett, Smith, Richards) in A Companion to Emily Dickinson on line.

Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters, pages 43-137

Poems

F241 What is–“Paradise”–

F248 One life of so much consequence!

F247 The Lamp burns sure–within–

F291 It Sifts from Leaden Sieves

F388 It would never be Common–more

F394 I cried at Pity–not at Pain–

F411 Mine–by the Right of the White Election

F451 The Malay–took the Pearl–

F479 Because I could not stop for Death–

F483 Most she touched me by her muteness–

F496 The Beggar Lad–dies early–

F575 I’m saying every day

F613 The Day that I was crowned

F748 God gave a Loaf to every Bird–

F836 Color–Caste–Denomination–

F856 I play at Riches–to appease

Poetic Strategies Presentations: For the next five class meetings each of you will be responsible for bringing to class a grouping of three or four poems that share a poetic strategy and to lead our discussion of this device. In this way we will build up a repertory of the tropes and formal structures of Dickinson’s poems.

“As Syllable from Sound”

Tuesday February 16^th: poetic scenelessness

Robert Weisbuch, “Prisiming Dickinson; or Gathering Paradise by Letting Go” Handbook 197-223

Selected Letters pages 139-188

Poems

F134 Did the Harebell loose her girdle

F181 A wounded Deer–leaps highest–

F259 A Clock stopped–

F276 Civilization–spurns–the Leopard!

F308 I breathed enough to take the Trick–

F320 There’s a certain Slant of light

F696 The Tint I cannot take–is best–

F339 I like a look of Agony

F598 The Brain–is wider than the Sky–

F633 I saw no Way–The Heavens were stitched–

F656 I Started Early–Took my Dog–

F730 You’ve seen Balloons set–Hav’nt You?

F824 A nearness to Tremendousness

F895 Further in Summer than the Birds (look at Amherst manuscript 66)

F899 Experience is the Angled Road

F901 The Soul’s distinct connection

F935 As imperceptibly as Grief

F1725 If I could tell how glad I was

Tuesday February 23^rd: letters and longing

Read Friends and Family section of the Emily Dickinson Museum website

Agnieska Salska, “Dickinson’s Letters” Handbook

*Virginia Jackson “Beforehand,” Dickinson’s Misery (2005), 1-15

Martha Nell Smith, “Susan and Emily Dickinson: Their Lives in Letters”

Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson, online 77-90

Selected Letters pages 139-188. Pay especial attention to these passionate letters

Letters to Susan Dickinson, Selected Letters: L56, L73, L77, L85, L93, L94, L173, L176

Master letters, Selected Letters: L187, L233, L248

Otis Lord, Selected Letters: L560-L563, L750, L752

Poems

F180 In Ebon Box, when years have flown

F194 Title divine, in mine

F269 Wild Nights–Wild Nights

F277 Going to Him! Happy letter

F292 I got so I could take his name

F346 He Showed me Heights I never saw–

F380 All the letters I can write

F519 This is my letter to the world

F700 The way I read a letter’s this

F706 I cannot live with you

F1307 Warm in her Hand these accents lie

F1489 A Route of Evanesence

F1672 A Letter is a joy of Earth

Correspondent Presentation: Pick one of Emily Dickinson’s correspondents read the brief biographical account in Selected Letters and on the Museum website, read/reread letters and poems sent to that correspondent. Be prepared to talk about how what you know about this recipient affects your reading of these particular poems.

* Recipients list of poems Dickinson sent in letters from Ralph Franklin variorum edition vol. 3, appendix 7, pages 1547-1559

Tuesday March 2^nd: Dickinson’s manuscripts and manuscript books

Meet at Amherst College Special Collections

Read Emily Dickinson Museum Website of Dickinson’s Writing

*Ralph Franklin “Introduction” to The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1998), 1-43

Martha Nell Smith “Dickinson’s Manuscripts” Handbook

Sharon Cameron, “Dickinson’s Fascicles” Handbook

*Susan Howe, “These Flames and Generosities of the Heart: Emily Dickinson and the Illogic of Sumptuary Values” in The Birthmark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History (1993), 131-153

*Mary Loeffelholz, Corollas of Autumn: Reading Franklin's Dickinson, The Emily Dickinson Journal 8 (December, 1999) 55-71

Poems

Fascicle 21, F440-450, 172, 451-455

Manuscript Books Presentation: use the Image Database of Dickinson Manuscripts at Amherst College to examine one of the fascicles in the college collection. What do you make of this book? What kind of relationships do you see between the poems that Dickinson collected here?

First Paper Due: Write a close analysis of a single Dickinson poem that you find particularly compelling or interesting. This is an occasion for detail, not generalization: pay attention to poetic practice and form, the particulars of her use of language and how meaning arises out of these. 4 double-spaced pages.

“Publication is the Auction”

Tuesday March 9^th: Dickinson’s “preceptor” and publication

Brenda Wineapple, Her Own Society, American Scholar (Summer 2008) 81-87

*Thomas Wentworth Higginson “A Letter to a Young Contributor” Atlantic Monthly IX (April 1862) reprinted in his Atlantic Essays, 71-92

*Thomas Wentworth Higginson “Emily Dickinson’s Letters” Atlantic Monthly LXVIII (October 1891), 444-56

*Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ADecoration,@ Scribner=s Monthly (June 1874), 234

William Luce, The Belle of Amherst

Letters: to Higginson, L260-L268, L271, L280, L290, L314, L316, L319, L323, L330, L330a, L342, L342a, L368, L413 (see Higginson’s poem “Decoration” in the course reader and Dickinson’s rejoinder F1428); letters on publication and fame L199, L444, L444a, L573 a-d

See the Boston Public Library Images of Dickinson correspondence

Poems about writing and publication

F278 A word is dead when it is said

F348 I would not paint–a picture–

F436 I found the words to every thought

F533 I reckon–when I count at all

F536 Some work for Immortality

F788 Publication–is the Auction

F930 The Poets light but Lamps–

F1268 A Word dropped careless on a Page

F1428 Lay this Laurel on the one

F1702 Fame is a fickle food

F1788 Fame is a bee

Poems sent to Higginson in 1862

F14 As if I asked a common Alms

F98 South winds jostle them–

F112 Success is counted sweetest

F124 Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

F204 I’ll tell you how the Sun rose–

F236 Some keep the Sabbath going to Church–

F243 That after Horror-that ‘twas us–

F282 We play at Paste–

F304 The nearest Dream recedes–unrealized–

F325 There came a Day–at Summer’s full–

F328 How the old Mountain drop with Sunset

F334 Of all the Sounds dispatched abroad

F336 Before I got my eyes put out–

F359 A Bird, came down the Walk–

F381 I cannot dance upon my Toes–

F401 Dare you see a Soul at the “White Heat”?

F418 Your Riches–taught me–Poverty.

Poems published in Dickinson’s lifetime

F2 Sic transit gloria mundi

F11 Nobody knows this little rose

F207 I taste a liquor never brewed

F124 Safe in their alabaster chambers

F95 Flowers–Well–if anybody

F122 These are the days when birds come back

F236 Some keep the Sabbath going to church

F321 Blazing in gold and quenching in purple

F112 Success is counted sweetest

F1096 A narrow fellow in the grass

*List of poems published in Dickinson’s lifetime from Ralph Franklin variorum edition vol. 3, appendix 1 1531-1532

Thursday March 11^th: Performance of The Belle of Amherst, Kirby Theater, 7pm

Spring Break

Tuesday March 23^rd: scatters and books

Meet at Archives and Special Collections

Suzanne Juhasz, “Materiality and the Poet,” Handbook

Browse in Radical Scatters: Emily Dickinson’s Fragments and Related Texts by Marta Werner, and in the Image Database of Dickinson Manuscripts at Amherst College

Browse Poems of Emily Dickinson, First Series Edited by her two friends Mable Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson (Boston, 1890)

Saturday March 27^th: “The Dickinson’s Domestic Life” a lecture by Aife Murray 2pm at the Amherst Women’s Club on Main Street just east of the Homestead.

Tuesday March 30^th: poetic possibility at home

*Susan Huntington Dickinson, “Magnetic Visitors” (1892) Amherst spring 1981, 8-15, 27

Diana Fuss, Interior Chambers: The Emily Dickinson Homestead Differences 10 (1998), 1-46

Aife Murray, Miss Margaret's Emily Dickinson, in Signs Vol. 24, No. 3 (Spring, 1999), 697-732

Jane Wald "Pretty much all real life": the Material World of the Dickinson Family” in A Companion to Emily Dickinson (2008), online

Poems

F 238 How many times these low feet staggered

F256 The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune

F 267 Rearrange a “Wife’s” Affection

F307 A solemn thing–it was–I said

F407 One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted

F445 They shut me up in Prose

F522 I tie my hat—I crease my shawl

F578 The Angle of a Landscape

F591 I heard a Fly buzz–when I died–

F675 What Soft--Cherubic Creatures

F729 The props assist the house

F1234 Remembrance has a rear and front

F1352 How soft this Prison is

Walking Tour of Dickinson sites in Amherst and hopefully a tour of the Homestead

Tuesday April 6^th: Dickinson’s poetic contemporaries

*Rufus Wilmont Griswold, “Preface,” The Female Poets of America (1854), 7-10

Paula Bernat Bennett, “Emily Dickinson and Her American Woman Poet Peers” Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson, on-line 215-135

Poems: comparison’s available through The Poets’ Corner

F123 Beside the Autumn poets sing and F845 It bloomed and dropt, a single Noon

With William Cullen Bryant, “The Death of Flowers”

F401 Dare you see a soul at the “White Heat”

With Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Village Blacksmith”

And Helen Hunt Jackson, “The Poets’ Forge”

F448 I died for Beauty—but was scarce

With John Keats, “Ode to a Grecian Urn”

F513 The Spider holds a Silver Ball

With Helen Hunt Jackson, “Crossed Threads”

F 600 Her –“Last Poems” and F627 I think I was enchanted

With Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Aurora Leigh,” excerpts from book II

You may also want to browse in this long poem as a whole

Saturday April 10^th “Celebrating Emily Dickinson’s Words” at the Jones Library

“This World is not conclusion”

Tuesday April 13 Seeing Nature

*Judith Farr, “The Garden in the Brain” The Gardens of Emily Dickinson (2004), 175-213

Poems

F57 Who robbed the Woods–

F70 So bashful when I spied her!

F204 I’ll tell you how the Sun rose–

F 205 Come slowly–Eden

F318 She sweeps with many-colored Brooms–

F321 Blazing in gold and quenching in purple

F327 How the old Mountains drip with Sunset

F351 She sights a Bird–she chuckles

F367 I tend my flowers for thee–

F370 Within my Garden, ride a Bird

F504 The Birds begun at Four o’clock

F557 I send Two Sunsets

F589 They called me to the Window, for

F669 An ignorance a Sunset

F721 “Nature” is what We see–

F778 Four trees–opon a solitary Acre–

F796 The Wind begun to rock the Grass

F843 It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon–

F1083 Sang from the Heart, Sire

F1096 A narrow fellow in the grass

F 1536 You cannot make Remembrance grow

View Dickinson’s Herbarium on-line and take an audio tour of the Dickinson grounds

Tuesday April 20^th: questions of faith

Letters: L36, L46, L389, L830

Poems

F202 “Faith” is a fine invention

F236 Some keep the Sabbath going to Church–

F268 Why do they shut me out of Heaven?

F349 He touched me, so I live to know

F373 This World is not conclusion

F386 Taking up the fair Ideal

F403 I reason, Earth is short–

F413 Heaven is so far of the Mind

F476 We pray–to Heaven–

F477 He fumbles at your soul

F544 “Heaven” has different Signs–to me–

F546 I prayed, at first, a little Girl,

F630 The Soul’s Superior instants

F670 One Crucifixion is recorded–only–

F688 To just know how He suffered–would be dear

F978 Faith–is the Pierless Bridge

F1347 Wonder–is not precisely knowing

F1537 “And with what Body do they come”?

F1581 These–dying then,

Second Paper Due: Write about a Dickinson poem of your choice, reflecting on its literary context. You could look at how a poem functions within one of Dickinson=s manuscript books, or in a letter, or in a site of publication, or in comparison with poems from some of Dickinson’s contemporaries. 5 double spaced pages.

Tuesday April 27^th: on the unutterable: pain, terror, despair, and death

*Obituary of Emily Dickinson, Springfield Republican May 18, 1886

* Mortuary Bill for the burial of Emily Dickinson

Selected Letters pages 257-330

Review Letters: L153, L278, L418, L440-41, L777, L779, L443, L868, L875, L972, L907, L1046

Poems

Fascicle 16 F336-346

F305 What if I say I shall not wait!

F355 It was not death

F357 I felt my life with both my hands

F360 The Soul has Bandaged moments

F372 After great pain, a formal feeling comes–

F399 Departed–to the Judgement–

F425 ‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch

F428 We grown accustomed to the Dark

F479 Because I could not stop for death

F515 There is a pain–so utter–

F550 I measure every Grief I meet

F591 I heard a Fly buzz–when I died

F614 ‘Twas warm–at first–like Us–

F619 Did you ever stand in a Cavern’s Mouth–

F620 Much Madness is divinest Sense--

F710 Doom is the House without the Door–

F743 Behind Me–dips Eternity–

F760 Pain has an element of Blank

F804 Ample make the Bed–

F1064 As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies

F1283 I know suspense--it steps so terse

Visit to Dickinson’s grave, West Cemetery

Tuesday May 5^th: Afterlife

View Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson

Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson

May 15^thPoetry Walk: Final Paper due

Books on Reserve at the Frost Library

Emily Dickinson, The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson 2 vols., ed. R.W. Franklin (1981) PS15411.A1 1981

Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition 3 vols., ed R.W. Franklin (1998) PS1541.A1 1998 v.1, v.2, and v,3

Emily Dickinson, Poems; Including Variant Readings... 3 vols., ed. Thomas Johnson (1955) 821.6 D56 Jo v.1, v.2 and v.3

Emily Dickinson, The Letters of Emily Dickinson 3 vols., ed. Thomas Johnson and Theodora Ward (1958) 821.6 D56Z D.1 J v.1, v.2 and v.3

Emily Dickinson, The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. R.W. Franklin PS1541.Z5 A4 1986

Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith, Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson PS1541 Z5 A45 1998

Alfred Habegger, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: the Life of Emily Dickinson, PS1541.Z5 H32 2001

Polly Longsworth, Austin and Mabel: The Amherst Affair and Love Letters of Austin Dickinson and Mable Loomis Todd PS1541 Z5 L597 1999

Vivian R. Pollak A Poet's Parents : the Courtship Letters of Emily Norcross and Edward Dickinson PS1541.Z5 D49 1988

S. P. Rosenbaum, A Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson 821.6 D56Z R

Cynthia MacKenzie, Concordance to the Letters of Emily Dickinson PS 1541 Z49 M33 2000

Willis J. Buckingham, Emily Dickinson's Reception in the 1890s, A Documentary History PS1541 Z5 E44 1989

Ralph W. Franklin, the Editing of Emily Dickinson; a Reconsideration PS1541.Z5 F7

Jack L. Capps Emily Dickinson's Reading, 1836-1886 PS1541.Z5 C3

Jay Leyda, The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson 2 vols. 821.6 D56Z L v.1 and v.2

Jerome Liebling, Photographs The Dickinsons of Amherst PS1541.Z5 L43 2001

Polly Longsworth The World of Emily Dickinson PS1541.Z5 L64 1990

Martha Dickinson Bianchi, The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson 821.6 D56Z D.li

Martha Dickinson Bianchi Emily Dickinson Face to Face: Unpublished Letters with Notes and Reminiscences 821.6 D56Z B.e

Millicent Todd Bingham, Ancestor’s Brocades: The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson PS1541.Z5 B53

Richard Sewall, The Life of Emily Dickinson 2 vols., PS1541.Z5 S42 v.1 v.2

Jane Donahue Eberwein An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia PS1541.Z49 E47 1998

Ceasar Blake ed., The Recognition of Emily Dickinson, Selected Criticism since 1890 PS1514.2Z B55

Graham Clarke Emily Dickinson : Critical Assessments PS1541.Z5 E386 2002 vols 1-4

Rufus Wilmot Griswold ed., The Female Poets of America 821.5 G888

Gudrun Grabher, Roland Hagenbüchle, Christanne Miller eds, The Emily Dickinson Handbook PS1541 Z5 E396 1998

Mary Loeffelholz and Martha Nell Smith, eds. A companion to Emily Dickinson PS1541.Z5 C65 2008

Wendy Martin ed, The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson PS 1541.Z5 C28 2002

Vivian Pollak ed, The Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson PS 1541.Z5 H57 2004

Noah Webster, Dictionary of the English Language (The Dickinson family dictionary was the 1844 edition of Webster’s) 423 W39a 1843 and 423 W39a 1846

Paula Bernat Bennett, Nineteenth-century American Women Poets: An Anthology PS589 .N5 1998

Museum Projects

Celebrating Emily Dickinson’s Words

“In honor of National Poetry Month, April 10 is a day devoted to the legacy of Emily Dickinson's poetry. This program is targeted at Amherst residents to instill an active awareness of poetry's significance--past, present, and future.”

Walking Tour. Research and lead a 45 minute walking tour of the town of Amherst focused on Dickinson sites but with a broader sense of 19^th century history. Create a brochure or annotated map to accompany this tour. This research will also be used on the Museum website. This work will be done with the guidance of someone appointed by the Jones Library.

Dickinson cooking. There will be refreshments for sale on April 10^th. Research and create exhibits about Dickinson’s cooking to make the refreshment sale educational. Museum guides and library folks will help make things too, but you could decide on what to sell at this table and bakers/cooks would be most welcome.

Amherst Quilt. One activity on April 10^th will be centered around an autograph quilt recently acquired by the Jones Library. Researching the story of the quilt and designing an exhibit to share what knowledge you find would make a great addition to this program. Work done in collaboration with Special Collections staff at the Jones Library.

Documenting the festivities. Students not involved with the walking tour will help document the day’s events with photographs and audio recording/interviews.

For the Emily Dickinson Museum Website

Gathering material for a section on Emily Dickinson in the 21^st century—finding contemporary references, allusions, parodies, and homages to Dickinson for incorporation into the Museum’s website.

Images of 19^th Century Amherst. Look through the thousands of images of 19^th century Amherst in the Jones collection and select images for inclusion on the Museum webpage. Work done in collaboration with Special Collections staff at the Jones Library.

Dickinson’s reading. Collect Dickinson quotations about books and authors and find links for online versions of these books, ideally in 19^th century editions.

Town of Amherst map/walking tour may be used for the town of Amherst section of the web as well.