Southern Gothic Fiction: The Quotidian Grotesques of Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers 4219-SC0002
The course is devoted to the fiction of two women writers of the American South, Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) and Carson McCullers (1917-1967), both often associated with the Southern Gothic style and American local color writing. The course will explore the different aspect of what lies at the core of their respective literary achievements, that is, the grotesque, understood both as an aesthetic category and as a category of social critique. Often associated with distortion, exaggeration, monstrosity, the fantastic, failure, disease or backwardness, the grotesque may often by employed either as a tool of satire or irony, or as a means of subverting the mainstream social norms, exposing them as oppressive and excluding. We will look at how the two writers explore the American South in their depiction of such themes as, for example, femininity, love, community, race, spirituality, the body, heritage, locality and nature.
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Term 2024L:
The course is devoted to the fiction of two women writers of the American South, Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) and Carson McCullers |
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completing the course student:
1. knows the most important thematic concerns in the fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers
2. knows the most significant elements associated with the Southern Gothic as well as with the aesthetic category of the grotesque, being able to connect them to the writings of the two authors
3. is able to offer readings of literary representations by means of the acquired interpretative tools
4. understands the social resonances between literature and society
Assessment criteria
Final essay 50% graded on the basis of ASC directives
Class participation 30%
A brief response on a specific topic - 20%
Bibliography
Primary literature
O’Connor, Flannery. Collected Works. The Library of America, 1988.
McCullers, Carson. Complete Novels. The Library of America, 2014.
McCullers, Carson. Stories, Plays and Other Writings. The Library of America, 2017
Literatura dodatkowa:
Alaimo O'Donnell, Angela. Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O'Connor. Fordham University Press, 2020
Bloom, Harold (ed). Carson McCullers. Chelsea House Pub, 1986
Bloom, Harold (ed). Flannery O’Connor. 2006
Graham-Bertolini, Alison et al. Carson McCullers in the Twenty-First Century. Palagrave, 2016
Neff Shaw, Mary. Flannery O'Connor: New Perspectives. 2020
Whitt, Jan (ed). Reflections in a Critical Eye: Essays on Carson McCullers, University Press of America, 2007
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Term 2024L:
Primary Literature |
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: