The American Novel: Ideology and Popular Culture 3301-ZJ-WM-LK002
The lecture, reflecting the research interests of the faculty, consists of advanced and systematic analysis of selected issues in British and/or American literature and culture. Different, thematically specific, these lectures reflect current trends and achievements in the specific area they cover. Content is evaluated and periodically modified. The lectures introduce students to former literary epochs, offer a diachronic and synchronic description of British and American literature, discuss major periods in literary history, present key authors, as well as major literary styles and genres. They also cover various aspects of British/American culture (including mass culture, high culture, material culture), geography, the arts.
Topics include:
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The legacy of Puritanism and its political significance in the pre-Civil War era.
2. Herman Melville: Manifest Destiny, Slavery and Capitalism.
3. Mark Twain: Democrats vs. Republicans – The Failure of Reconstruction
4. Francis Scott Fitzgerald: The Dark Side of the 1920s – Immigration, Mass Consumerism, White Supremacy.
5. Richard Wright & Ralph Ellison: Different Responses to Racism and “Jim Crow.”
6. Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon & Don DeLillo: Postmodern Critics of Post-War America
7. Toni Morrison & Colson Whitehead: The Burden of America’s Racist Past (and Present).
Course coordinators
Type of course
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
Students will have in-depth familiarity with:
- K_W06 selected dilemmas and issues of United States history and culture in the light of literary and cultural studies, as related to the compulsory subjects included in the programme and other elective courses
Abilities
Students will be able to:
- K_U06 apply knowledge from literary and cultural studies relating to selected dilemmas and issues of United States history and culture
Assessment criteria
Final test in written form (verification of outcomes: W, U)
Bibliography
DeLillo, Don. Selected passages from White Noise.
Ellison, Ralph. Selected passages from Invisible Man.
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. The Great Gatsby. Selected short stories.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Selected short stories and passages from The Scarlet Letter.
Melville, Herman. „Bartleby, the Scrivener” and selected passages from Moby-Dick.
Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif” and selected passages from Beloved.
Pynchon, Thomas. Selected passages from The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Selected essays.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Selected passages from Slaughterhouse-Five.
Whitehead, Colson. Selected passages from The Underground Railroad.
Wright, Richard. Selected passages from Native Son.
Apart from the readings, students will be asked to watch film adaptation of some of the novels discussed during the lecture, and to prepare response papers.