Sex, Drugs, and Shopping: Scenes of Consumption in Postwar American Fiction
ENGL 322
Fall 2015 not offered
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This course will explore the fascination with materialism, commodities, and hedonism in post-World War II American fiction. These novels do not merely document the explosion of the postwar consumer economy or the transformation of the sexual culture in the years just before and then after what became known as the "sexual revolution." They seek, rather, to interlink the two: to reveal the economic logic that structures the search for sexual satisfaction and the sexual fantasies that underpin economic activity. The course will introduce key concepts from Marxism, feminism, cultural studies, and media studies to help elucidate the connections among various kinds of desires that these novels obsessively document. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath: 978-0061148514
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov: 978-0679727293
Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion: 978-0374531386
Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta: 978-0743273008
White Noise, Don DeLillo: 978-0140274981
Commodify Your Dissent, eds. Frank and Weiland: 978-0393316735
Vox, Nicholson Baker: 978-1862070967
How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life, Sheila Heti: 978-1250032447
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Examinations and Assignments:
4 papers and a final exam |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course contributes to the American Literature and Theory & Literary Forms concentrations of the English major. |
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