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Students acquire knowledge of and insight into the themes, styles and reputations of several important American writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be able to perform close critical readings of the texts and place them in a broader cultural-historical perspective. They will be aware of the most important critical interpretations of and/or debates on the texts and will have consulted relevant scholarly background literature.
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Students will read, analyze, and learn to contextualize a representative selection of American literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on American modernism, postmodernism, and the rise of minority literatures in the US. The course will pay attention to the development of American literature in terms of themes and styles and will also consider scholarly interpretations and discussions of a relevant literary theoretical or cultural theoretical and historical nature. The literary works discussed seek to illustrate the question of identity and the individual versus society amidst the overall wrenching changes that characterized 20th and 21st century America. |
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