Studies in Contemporary Literature
Term 2,
MWF, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
This course uses three giants of American letters to explore the period from the mid-1960s to the present – from the upheavals of the Vietnam War, civil rights, and counterculture to the era of 9/11, neoliberalism, and wars in the Middle East – in U.S. literature and social history. The concepts of dream (and associated tropes of aspiration, immigration, founding, and democratic promise) and nightmare (Gothicism, apocalypticism, and extremes such as U.S. totalitarianism and racist exile) will offer us a loose organizing framework. Texts will in all likelihood include Don DeLillo’s Americana and either Falling Man or Underworld (depending on time), Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and Toni Morrison’s Paradise and Love, along with a handful of critical and theoretical texts. Students should prepare for intense reading (and re-reading) experiences and will write two major essays, take a final exam, and participate regularly in classroom and online discussions, possibly on occasion through podcasting and wiki forms.
