Percival Everett's JAMES is a brilliant re-telling of the great American classic, Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, from the point of view of the runaway slave, Jim. In this SDG, we will first read Twain's humorous account of what happens to Huck and Jim as they float down the Mississippi River, encountering white slavers, grifters, feuding families, and sympathetic hosts. We will then re-trace their steps, focusing on the experiences of James as he rewrites his own history, and in the process reshapes our understandings of the American South just before the Civil War and of the institution of slavery.
1. Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, chs. 1-9
2. Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, chs. 10-18
3. Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, chs. 19-26
4. Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, chs. 27-35
5. Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, chs. 36-42
Twain, the "Raft Passage" from LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
6. Everett, JAMES, pp. 1-88
7. Everett, JAMES, pp. 89-185
8. Everett, JAMES, pp. 187-247
9. Everett, JAMES, pp. 249-303
Core Books
Mark Twain, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Norton Critical Edition, ed. Thomas Cooley
Percival Everett, JAMES (Doubleday, New York, 2024)