American Campus Novel 4219-RS286
Life on the American university campus has been widely depicted in literature and culture throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Surrounded by a veil of secrecy, the academic setting proved a worthy subject of literary investigation, giving rise to a new genre known as a “campus novel, its subgenre – “varsity novel,” and its popular contemporary iteration known as a “dark academia.” This course will introduce students to a diverse body of American campus fiction, focusing on its evolution, methods of representation, and sociocultural significance. Through textual and cultural readings, we will learn to investigate the forms and formulas the genre thrives on, particularly those inspired by romance, crime, and fantasy literature. How does campus fiction portray relationships between students, faculty, and administration? How do these representations inform our understanding of higher education in the United States? How are gender, sexuality, class, and race depicted in campus novels? In what sense does academic culture become an object of fantasy? To answer these questions, we will read (deeply, critically, and analytically) such novels as Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Kiley Reids’s Come and Get It, John Williams’s Stoner, as well as dark academia short stories.
Type of course
elective courses
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
- knows the main characteristics of the campus novel genre and dark academia short stories
- knows the history of the evolution of campus fiction and its connections with the history of the United States
- knows the sociocultural and literary contexts in which the discussed novels and short stories are set
- knows concepts used in selected literary theories, gender and sexuality studies, and intersectional race and class research and understands their significance and function from the point of view of research on North American literature
Skills
- can analyze connections between North American literature, with an emphasis on the genre of campus novel, and historical and sociocultural contexts
- can see the connections between the themes addressed in campus novels and such fields of knowledge as American history or sociology
- can perform a critical textual and cultural analysis of the campus novel and the dark academia short storie
-can see the political and ideological underpinnings of campus fiction and analyze them
Social competences
- can formulate complex opinions about North American literature using the tools of literary criticism and cultural theory
- is able to provide feedback on scholarly texts and presentations
- is able to transform ideas into independent research projects
-is able to plan and implement a research project
Assessment criteria
- active participation 25%
- research proposal 20%
- presentation of the research project 20%
- research paper 35%
Grading scale
Final grade: over 90% – 5; 85-89% – 4+; 75-84% – 4; 70-74% – 3+; 60-69% – 3.
Bibliography
Campus fiction (primary literature)
Reed, Ishmael. Japanese by Spring, 1993.
Reid, Kiley. Come and get it, 2024.
Tartt, Donna, The Secret History, 1992.
Williams, John. Stoner, 1965.
Selected short stories.
Secondary literature:
Adriaansen, Robbert-Jan. “Dark Academia: Curating Affective History in a COVID-Era Internet Aesthetic.” International Public History, vol. 5, no. 2, 2022, pp. 105-114.
Horgan, Amelia. “The ‘Dark Academia’ Subculture Offers a Fantasy Alternative to the Neoliberal University,” Jacobin, 19 December 2021, https://jacobin.com/2021/12/instagram-tumblr-humanities-romanticism-old-money-uk.
Murray, Simone. “Dark Academia: Bookishness, Readerly Self-fashioning and the Digital Afterlife of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History,” English Studies, vol. 104, no. 2, 2023, pp. 347-364.
Nguyen, Maryann. “Nostalgia in Dark Academia,” East-West Cultural Passage vol. 1, 2023, pp. 54-72.
Raphel, Adrienne. “A Brief History of (My) Dark Academia,” LitHub, 28 September 2022, https://lithub.com/a-brief-history-of-my-dark-academia/.
Beal, Wesley. Campus Fictions: Exemption and the American Campus, Palgrave, 2024.
Showalter, Elaine. Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents, Oxford UP, 2005.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: