Module Information

Module Identifier
EN11220
Module Title
American Literature 1800-2000
Academic Year
2026/2027
Co-ordinator
Semester
Semester 1
Reading List
Other Staff

Course Delivery

 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Assessment Takeaway exam  Takeaway Exam with a mandatory second question, which is a 200 word reflection on how feedback from Assignment I has been implemented in the second assignment. 2000 Words  50%
Semester Exam Essay Assignment  2000 Words  50%
Supplementary Assessment Takeaway exam  2000 Words  50%
Supplementary Exam Essay  2000 Words  50%

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

Demonstrate critical and interpretative skills appropriate to Level 1 and deploy an appropriate critical vocabulary.

Demonstrate an analytical approach to issue of form, genre and language in American literature.

Demonstrate an ability to relate literary texts to appropriate historical and cultural contexts

Brief description

This module surveys American literature and culture from founding narratives which sought to define the new Republic, and through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, examining the construction of a specifically American identity in relation to the social and cultural changes which have characterised American experiences in this period. The first half of the course explores the historical development of America via myths and legends, the search for independent and autonomous selfhood and the importance of motifs of freedom, space and wilderness; and issues of race, gender and politics. The second half of the module then explores the changing shape of American selfhood in the twentieth century, the emergence of ethnic voices in American literature, the advent of consumerism and the emergence of women's voices as politically significant, and the rise of the counterculture following World War II.

Aims

The module aims remain the same as the previous iteration of this module

Content

Lectures and Seminars:

Week 1
Lecture: A Brief Introduction to Blackboard and Module Expectations; Founding Narratives and Puritan Perspectives
Essential Reading: Washington Irving, “Rip van Winkle,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819-1820); Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” (1835)

Week 2
Lecture: American Democracy, and the Advent of Civil War
Essential Reading: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855 Edition: Read “Preface” and “Song of Myself” (1855)

Week 3
Lecture: African American Slavery
Essential Reading: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

Week 4
Lecture: American Literature in the South and Reconstruction
Essential Reading: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Week 5
Lecture: Women’s Voices: Causes and Rights.
Essential Reading: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)

Week 6 – Reading Week

Week 7
Lecture: Immigrant Voices
Essential Reading: Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918)

Week 8
Lecture: Early Modernism and the American Dream
Essential Reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

Week 9
Lecture: Teen and Beat Counterculture
Essential Reading: J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951); Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” (1956)

Week 10
Lecture: Civil Rights
Essential Reading: August Wilson, Fences (1985)

Week 11
Lecture: Twentieth-Century Multiculturalism
Essential Reading: Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (1989)

Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Communication (written) By developing a sustained critical argument. (oral) Through group discussions and seminar presentations.
Improving own Learning and Performance Through independent research and reading.
Information Technology By using word-processing packages and making use of Blackboard and other e-resources to research and access course documents andn other materials.
Personal Development and Career planning Through increased critical self-reflection and the development of transferable, ICT, communication and research skills.
Problem solving By evaluative analysis and critical skills.
Research skills By independent research and synthesizing information in an evaluative argument.
Subject Specific Skills Textual analysis of a range of American literature. Development of contextual understanding of American literature and culture from the colonial period to the present day. Continuing development of reading and writing skills taught in Part One
Team work Through group work and presentations in seminars.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 4