Style, Authenticity and Community
COL 203
Spring 2007 not offered
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F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed that personality might be "an unbroken series of successful gestures." Is there more to the self than the style that characterizes it? Can style--in particular, literary style--be a means of self-realization? This course will explore these questions and also examine the different ways that style can position the individual within a community. A person can claim membership in a group through adopting a style; or he or she can use a style to demonstrate his or her singularity and difference. Authenticity can be taken as proof that one is a responsible moral being--but who gets to decide what the markers of authenticity are?
We will begin with a study of Flaubert's MADAME BOVARY, a book whose heroine sets the high water mark for inauthenticity in modern literature. We will read some central texts of existentialist philosophy, including works by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The main section of the course will focus on existentialism's influence on American literary and political culture in the 1950s and early 1960s; we will read the work of poets, novelists and critics grappling with questions of style and authenticity. The course will conclude with a reconsideration of the postmodern and its purported emphasis on style without depth. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Speaking, Writing |
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA COL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Gustave Flaubert, MADAME BOVARY
Simone de Beauvoir, THE SECOND SEX
Richard Wright, THE OUTSIDER
Sylvia Plath, ARIEL
Frank O'Hara, LUNCH POEMS
Don DeLillo, WHITE NOISE
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Examinations and Assignments:
Students will write four essays varying in length from 4-5 pp. to 6-7 pp. Each student will also give an oral presentation in class. |
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