Studies in Prose Fiction
Term: 1
MWF, 11:00 a.m.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti declared that poetry would thereafter be known as “BS” and “AS” – “before” and “after” September 11. This course asks whether a similar assessment can be made for prose. How has fiction responded to the 9/11 attacks and to the so-called “war on terror”? Has the genre been irrevocably transformed or does it instead echo the work of earlier historical periods and traumas? We will explore U.S. fiction (and some nonfiction) written after, and with some relation to, the September 11 attacks. Some texts will respond directly to the attacks, some to its geo-political aftermath, and some have been chosen for their oblique relation to the attacks, one that may suggest a changed cultural climate at large. In the broadest sense, as we read the literature of 9/11, we will read texts that take on topics of war, trauma, memory, loss, race, and identity in a 21st-century context.
In addition to a small selection of essays TBA, our readings will likely include the following:
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close;
Don DeLillo’s Falling Man;
Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist;
Phil Klay’s Redeployment (selected stories);
Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun;
Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.
