American Fiction 1900-1945 (Second year module)
Semester Fall
Programme description
American prose fiction during this the first half of the twentieth century provides some of the most remarkable and inventive writing in the English language and students will acquire an understanding of some of the definitive figures and movements. These will include some of the following: the development of full-blown 'Naturalism' in the work of Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris; the extreme development of psychological realism in the late fiction of Henry James; the elegant symbolic realism of Edith Wharton, Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald; the apparent recapitulation of Naturalist realism in the complex work of the great African-American writer Richard Wright; the heyday of Modernist innovation, as represented by the work of Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos; the first great period of African-American literary experimentation, the Harlem Renaissance, which saw the publication of such remarkable writers as Jean Toomer and Nella Larsen.
Students will be taught to appreciate the complex interrelation between this literature and its dynamic social and cultural contexts, such as: the emergence of the urban leisure class; the development of consumer society; dramatic technological innovation; rapid urban and industrial growth; increased immigration; the great economic crash of 1929; the growth of political radicalism in the 1930s; and finally two world wars.
Pre-requisites
You must have studied at least two courses in American Studies/Literature or similar at your home institution, at least one in your sophomore year. A cumulative GPA of 3.3 is also required.
Assessment
The course is taught through weekly one-hour lectures, each followed by a one-hour seminar discussion. Assessment consists of a long essay of 5,000 words (90%) and by in-class participation (10%).
Credits
4