BA Seminar: American Literature and Sociocultural Change 4219-ZS027
The seminar equips the students with research and thesis invention/argumentation skills, which will help them write their BA thesis. Its main focus is the relationship between literature and sociocultural change in North American society. More specifically, it looks at intricate connections between politics and literature (the discussed genres include poetry, novel, reportage, graphic novel), the role of literature in raising collective consciousness and documenting (as well as leading towards) revolutionary change (the literature of protest, poetics of crisis). Theoretical approaches to literature, read as inseparable from literary and social praxis, include feminist and queer studies, memory and trauma studies, critical race theory, ecocritcism/ecopoetics).
Type of course
B.Sc. seminars
Learning outcomes
- critical reading
- debating/argumentative skills
- thesis invention and development
- preparing thesis outline
- editing and proofreading
Assessment criteria
To pass the course, students need to submit their BA thesis.
Bibliography
Adrienne Rich, A Human Eye; What is Found There, Poetry and Social Commitment; Of Woman Born
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider; Uses of The Erotic: Erotic as Power
James Baldwin, Here Be Dragons
Philip Roth, American Pastoral
Harlem Renaissance
The Beat Generation
New Journalism and 21st century documentary forms
Muriel Rukeyser, Book of the Dead
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric; Just Us
Margaret Atwood, The Testaments
Richard Powers, The Overstory
Jericho Brown, The Tradition
Paul Goodman, Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals
Gonzo journalism
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: