Learning outcomes

Brief description

Content

Lecture 1: The New Urban America (Tim Woods)

• Related seminars: 1. Immigrant Voices; 2. The Jazz Age

Lecture 2: The Impact and Aftermath of the Great Depression (Helena Grice)

• Related seminars: 3. The New Negro Renaissance; 4. The Great Depression

Lecture 3: Suppression and Subversion (Matt Jarvis)

• Related seminars: 5. Cold War Culture and Its Discontents; 6. Emergent Feminist Voices

Lecture 4: Postmodernity in America (Matt Jarvis)

• Related seminars: 7. Civil Rights in the 1960s; 8. Postmodern Fictions

Lecture 5: American Multiculturalism (Helena Grice)

• Related seminars: 9. New Communities, New Identities; 10. Multicultural Voices

SEMINAR CONTENTS AND SET TEXTS

• EACH DISCUSSION WILL ASSUME THAT STUDENTS HAVE COMPLETED THE REQUIRED READING BEFORE COMING TO THE SEMINAR.

• Please note that you MUST have read Willa Cather, O Pioneers! for your first seminar, as there is no introductory seminar meeting in this module. You must also bring your copy of the Heath Anthology with you to the first seminar. Your tutor may make use of the section called 'The Making of "Americans"' (pp. 823-886).

• It should be emphasised that the framework below will guide the broad directions of study rather than dictating every aspect of it. We hope and expect that students will bring to each seminar their own responses and ideas generated from their own reading of these literary texts.

• ALL PAGE NUMBERS in the list below refer to the FOURTH EDITION of The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol.2, edited by Paul Lauter et al.

Seminar 1: Immigrant Voices

Set Text: Willa Cather, O Pioneers!; at the tutor's discretion, The Heath Anthology (pp. 823-886)

• This seminar will concentrate upon Cather as an example of the westward expansion and settlement of new immigrants to the midwest.

Seminar 2: The Jazz Age

Set Text: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

• This seminar will examine the the social and cultural decadence of the so-called 'Jazz Age'.

Seminar 3: The New Negro Renaissance

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - Jean Toomer (pp. 1579-1598); Langston Hughes (pp. 1598-1608); Zora Neale Hurston (pp. 1656-1673); Claude McKay (pp. 1673-1679).

• The so-called 'Harlem Renaissance' marked the beginning of a new political and cultural consciousness in African American society. This seminar will consider the impact and effectiveness of these new representations of African American urban culture.

Seminar 4: The Great Depression

Set Text: Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts

• This seminar will examine the effects of the Great Depression on American society, and the ways in which these effects were represented in fiction, drama and journalism.

Seminar 5: Cold War Culture and its Discontents

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - Allen Ginsberg (pp. 2293-2307); Lawrence Ferlinghetti (pp. 2315-2323); Gary Snyder (pp. 2348-2353).

• This seminar will investigate the representations of America by writers disaffected with American triumphalism and self-satisfaction during the Cold War, and their attempts to articulate alternative social and political visions of national identity.

Seminar 6: Emergent Feminist Voices

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - Tillie Olsen (pp. 2213-2240); Adrienne Rich (pp. 2525-2534); Sylvia Plath, (pp. 2368-2378).

• This seminar will focus upon American women writers of the 1950s, and their increasing discontent with the compalcent domestic and suburban roles ascribed to women.

Seminar 7: Civil Rights in the 1960s

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - Lorraine Hansberry (pp. 2389-2449); Martin Luther King, Jr. (pp. 2455-2459); Amiri Baraka (pp. 2597-2603).

• Concentrating on the politics and economics of race in the 1960s.

Seminar 8: Postmodern Fictions

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - John Barth (pp. 2824-2840); Thomas Pynchon (pp. 2846-2857).

• Focusing on the cultural phenomenon known as 'postmodernism'.

Seminar 9: New Communities, New Identities

Set Texts: from the Heath Anthology, Vol. 2 - Joy Harjo (pp.3078-3088); Wendy Rose (pp. 3116-3126); Gary Soto (3071-3078); Simon Ortiz (pp. 3161-3167).

• First of two seminars on the emergence of strong literary multicultural voices in the late twentieth century. This seminar will pay particular attention to the poetry of Native American and Chicano voices.

Seminar 10: Multicultural Voices

Set Text: Gish Jen, Typical American

• Continuing the focus on multicultural writing, paying particular attention to an example of Asian American writing.

Reading Lists

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 4