Modern American Literature
Lark Hall profile
TR 9-10:30
This course considers forms and themes in American writing since the mid-twentieth century. We will focus our attention in three areas: "confessional" writing, engaged with defining personal identity; "documentary" writing, engaged with exploring the terrain between fact and fiction; and "cultural" writing, engaged with voicing the varieties of American
experience. Readings will instories, poetry, autobiographies, and essays by such authors as Allen Ginsburg, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Flannery O'Connor, J.D. Salinger, James Baldwin, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Ursula LeGuin, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Silko, Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Sandra Cisneros. Screenings of plays, films, and documentaries (possibly Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," Woody Allen's "Zelig," Spike Lee's "Malcolm X") will augment class texts and the ubiquitous bulkpack. Participation, three papers, a presentation, perhaps a final, perception, and perseverance requested.
updated 2006-11-06
