Contemporary North-American Literature
Code
711121031
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas, Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-Americanos
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Isabel Oliveira Martins
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To improve the knowledge of North-American literature from 1945 to the present.
b) To enable critical analysis of the authors from the above-mentioned period and to relate them to the cultural context in which their works were produced.
c) To be able to produce critical readings of the literary texts.
d) To be able to make and organize bibliographical research about the authors, works and period under scrutiny.
Prerequisites
Not applicable. However, students are advised to have completed the subject North American Literature.
Subject matter
1. Introduction to the main issues of the course: a survey of how American literature has met the challenges of American history.
2. Attempts to articulate answers after the Second World War:
a) Searching for identity:
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in The Rye
Raymond Carver, Where Im Calling From
Annie Proulx, What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?
Gish Jen, In the American Society
Sandra Cisneros, Eleven
John Updike, A&P
Toni Morrison, \"Recitatif\"
b) Looking for alternatives and different kinds of escape:
The Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac, On the Road; selection of poems by Allen Ginsberg;
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five;
c) The private/public quest:
Selection of poems by Sylvia Plath
Selection of poems by Adrienne Rich
d) Trauma, religion and survival:
Tim O Brien, The Things They Carried
Flannery OConnor, A Good Man is Hard to Find
Bibliography
Rangno, E. (2005). Contemporary American Literature, 1945-Present: American Literature in Its Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts. N.Y.: Facts on File, Inc.
Bercovitch, S. (ed.) (1996). The Cambridge History of American Literature. Volume Eight: Poetry and Criticism: 1940-1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Durante, R. (2001). The Dialectic of Self and Story; Reading and Storytelling in Contemporary American Literature. N.Y.: Garland Science.
Ruland, R. & Bradbury, M. (1991). From Puritanism to Post-Modernism. A History of American Literature. N.Y.: Routledge.
Tallack, D. (1991). Twentieth-Century America. The Intellectual and Cultural Context. N. Y.: Longman.
Teaching method
The critical study of the literary texts will be privileged in the teachers lectures together with the study of the context in which the works were produced. This will be accompanied by the study of other kind of bibliographical material, such as studies and essays about the authors and the context in which their works were produced.
Evaluation method
Evaluation will include active participation in class, a discussion in class of one of the texts (by one or more students), and a final written test.