Junior Colloquium: Literary Studies as American Studies
AMST 210
Fall 2010 not offered
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How do stories work and what work can they do for students of American culture? How do they contribute to and complicate efforts to historicize and theorize power? This junior colloquium will engage these questions by reading literary texts as powerful modes of cultural and ideological critique. We will read a series of canonical and noncanonical works in the context of both literary studies (drawing on close reading, genre theory, and narratology) and cultural criticism (including Marxism, feminist theory, ethnic studies, and transnational theory) with the goal of understanding precisely how literary texts--through their form and themes--instigate, challenge, and ultimately facilitate the kind of analysis at the heart of American studies. Starting with works by Hawthorne and Melville that historicize various subjectivities and conceptualize the operation of power among individuals, groups, and nations, we will proceed to an array of modern, hybrid texts--comics, graphic novels, television, and film--that combine story and image to articulate new modes of social critique. We will conclude with three contemporary texts, an Iraq War documentary (Gunner Palace), a historical novel (Amalgamation Polka), and a graphic memoir (Fun Home), that incorporate the lessons of American studies in their very conception and form. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Interpretation, Writing
To be determined
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA AMST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Gilman, Stein, Fitzgerald, Brooks, Okada, Spiegelman, and Coppola. Selections from LOCATING AMERICAN STUDIES and AMERICAN LITERATURE/LITERARY STUDY
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly, one paragraph "reading" exercises, a descriptive analysis of a 19th-century text (4-5 pages), class presentation on a critical essay, a final research paper 10-15 pages with related exercises (prospectus, presentation, etc.) |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
In addition to required screenings, this colloquium may include occasional presentations on literary method by Wesleyan scholars. We may also get the services of a Writing Assistant to help with the short exercises in individual conferences. |
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