Syllabus
Week 1
Lecture: 20th century US poetry
Reading assignment: Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks
Week 2
Lecture: American Modernism I
Reading assignment: William Faulkner: Barn Burning; A Rose for Emily
Ernest Hemingway: A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Hills Like White Elephants
Week 3
Lecture: American Modernism II (Jazz Age)
Reading assignment: F.S. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Week 4
Lecture: Southern Gothic I
Reading assignment: Flannery O´Connor, Good Country People, A Late Encounter with the Enemy
Week 5
Lecture1: Southern Gothic II; Lecture 2: Beat Generation
Reading assignment: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (3 excerpts)
Reading assignment: Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1 excerpt)
Week 6
Lecture: American drama I
Reading assignment: Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Week 7
Lecture: American drama II, Drama of the Absurd
Reading assignment: TennesseeWilliams, Streetcar Named Desire
Reading assignment: Edward Albee, The Zoo Story
Week 8
Lecture: Jewish American Literature
Reading assignment: Phillip Roth, Defender of the Faith
Reading assignment: Bernard Malamud, Armistice
Week 9
Lecture: African American Literature
Reading assignment: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Week 10
Lecture: Reflection of war inUSliterature
Reading assignment: David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars (film + 6 excerpts)
Week 11
Lecture: US Postmodernism
Reading assignment: Michael Cunningham, The Hours (film + 5 excerpts)
Annotation
This course aims to give the students a general outline of the most significant events in American literature, focusing largely, but not exclusively, on canonical authors. These seminars complement lectures which reside in presenting a particular literary movement, including its social and cultural background. These are then followed by a close reading session which focuses on the selected seminar texts (novels, short stories, plays, etc.).
Requirements: 80% attendance (2 unexplained absences are permissible);
Written & oral exam.