American Novel
This course is a study of selected American novels focused around two key issues in American society—race and consumerism. The course is structured with three main goals in mind. First, since this class focuses on a particular literary form—the novel—we seek to understand the history, structure, and purpose of the novel and discuss strategies for reading, understanding, and evaluating it. Second, we examine the historical forces and literary movements that helped to shape the novel in general and the novels we are studying in particular. Finally, this course introduces students to advanced literary discourse.
American Poetry
"...scholars...try to explain how poems work, how they arrest, astonish, reveal. How they force us to see differently. Scholars try to explain these experiences to others...." --Jerome McGann, The Scholar’s Art
In this course, we become scholars of American poetry with an emphasis on 20th-century American poetry. We pay particular attention to the conventions of poetry and work to develop skills for careful, critical, and artful reading of poetry while also exploring the social, historical, and cultural contexts of the poems and poets we read.
Aging and Artistry
This course will explore the mental and physical aspects of aging as represented in 20th and 21st century American literature. We live in a youth-obsessed culture that celebrates young artists as innovators, but many artists grow over time, making significant contributions as they grapple with the changes and challenges of aging. In this class, we explore the cultural, historical, sociological, and political contexts of aging in America. We also examine the way authors represent the aging process as well as the way their creative processes, themes, and styles change as they age.
Gender & Literature
Literature is gendered. From Jane Austen to Judy Blume, from Ernest Hemingway to Chuck Palahniuk, literature is entangled with gender. Literature has an iterative and reciprocal relation to gender. That is to say, literature is informed by gender and literature helps shape our understanding of gender. In this course, we will explore the relationship between gender and literature (and between gender and culture more broadly), focusing on how literature is used to address three major issues: 1. What is “feminine”? What is “masculine”? How do we come to understand these categories—and the range of expressions and identities between them?; 2. How does focusing on gender inform/shape our readings of texts?; 3. What tools does gender theory offer us to better understand the relationship between literature and gender and between gender and culture more broadly?
American Writers in the 1920s
“Paris was where the twentieth century was” according to Gertrude Stein. In the wake of World War I, Paris became “home” for many young American writers disillusioned by the promises of progress and the growing conservatism (e.g., Prohibition) of the United States. Writers and artists from all over the world converged in Paris, but Americans such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, and Pound dominated the scene. In this course, we read a variety of American expatriate writers and situate them and their work in the cultural and historical moment of Paris in the 1920s. In particular, we address the significance of World War I, literary modernism, and theories of expatriate experience and identity.
Hemingway and Fitzgerald
Although in many ways the friendship began with Fitzgerald as the more accomplished writer, just a little over ten years later, F. Scott Fitzgerald scribbled in one of his notebooks: "I talk with the authority of failure—Ernest with the authority of success. We could never sit across the same table again." This casual jotting signaled the end of their close relationship (they continued a sporadic exchange until Fitzgerald's death in 1940) and the end of one of the great literary friendships of the twentieth century. In this class, we explore the friendship and rivalry between these two great American writers. In particular, we focus on their different responses to the pressures and enticements of literary fame and celebrity as well as their responses to each other’s work and fame.
Literature into Film
This course focuses on the translation/adaptation of literary works into films. We explore the capacities, limitations, and possibilities of each medium, asking questions such as: What kinds of narrative are possible in film versus literature? What kinds of literary narrative can film not capture? What filmic elements are not possible in literature (cinematography or soundtracks, for example)? How does characterization differ in literature and film? How do the decisions of the director impact of the work? What are the obligations (if any) of filmic adaptations to the original text? Can we understand adaptation as a form of interpretation? Although these and other questions are asked throughout the course, our discussion is guided largely by questions that arise out of the specific works we are studying.
American Literature Surveys
Contemporary American Litearture. This course offers a themed overview of American Literature from 1940 to the present. We read novels, plays, short stories, poetry, and essays and other non-fictional works. Through study of these texts, we practice techniques for close reading, critical thinking, and effective writing while also becoming familiar with the cultural, historical, and social situations in America that inform these texts.
Modern American Literature. This course offers a chronological overview of American Literature from 1865 (post-Civil War) to 1940 (World War II). In this class, we read novels, short stories, poetry, and non-fictional works that typify the period. We will also explore a variety of literary movements including Realism, Naturalism, Regionalism, and Modernism. Along the way, we will practice techniques for close reading, critical thinking, and effective writing in the context of American literary themes.
American Romanticism & Transcendentalism. This course offers an overview of American literature from 1820 to the Civil War, the period in which America developed a formal literary culture. We read a combination of novels, short stories, poetry, and essays. Along the way, we practice techniques for close reading, critical thinking, and effective writing in the context of American literary themes and concerns.