21:352:211,212
Contemporary American Literature (3,3)
These courses emphasize close reading and writing about contemporary American literature. They focus upon novels and plays from the mid-1960s to recent times while aiming to provide students with a solid foundation for interpretation and literary analysis. Playwrights include Sam Shepard and Christopher Durang; fiction writers include Khalid Hosseini, Ursula LeGuin, Kurt Vonnegut, Jerzy Kosinski, and Amy Tan.
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21:352:225
Literature of Social Protest (3)
The readings are works of social protest emerging from a number of key moments in U.S. history: pre-Civil War abolitionism, late 19th- and early 20th-century industrialization; the Great Depression; the antiwar, antiracist, and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s; and present-day movements against mass incarceration and neoliberalism. The readings include both literary and historical/political texts. Students will be asked to examine their own experience within larger social structures and the role played by literature and art in challenging or legitimating these social structures. Cultivation of the individual student's critical awareness, far more than the formation of a particular political or ethical outlook, is the principal goal of the course.
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21:352:230
Race, Nation, and Borders in American Literature (3)
This course studies literary texts of the diasporic, native, and immigrant groups within and beyond the borders of the United States. How do Amerindian, African American, Asian American, Latina/o, and other literary traditions respond to the racial procedures of the United States? How has racism changed over time, and how does it relate to the categories of class and sex? Readings are divided into four units that evoke cultural and historical processes of the United States and the Americas: colonization, revolution, citizenship, and language.
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21:352:250
Literature of the American Revolution (3)
The American Revolution was partly a war of words. This course looks at some of the classic and not-so-classic texts of the Revolution and its aftermath. The classic texts include The Declaration, The Constitution, Common Sense, and The Federalist Papers. The lesser-known texts include journalism, sermons, poetry, a play, and a novel. The course's central theme is argument, and the focus is upon antagonisms among Americans.
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21:352:300,301
American Poetry (3,3)
American poetry and its backgrounds, critical standards, and techniques from the 17th century to the present.
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21:352:324
Latino/a Literature and Culture (3)
Examines representative texts by Latino/a authors from
the colonial period through the present, which reveal the perspectives
of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South, and Central American migrant
writers. Considers a variety of genres and formats including
chronicles, essays, fiction, oratory, journalism, performance art,
film, and music. Themes include: migration, assimilation,
and dislocation; working conditions and labor struggles; colonization;
language loss and translation; cultural hybridity and mestizaje;
and gender, sexuality, color, class, nationality, and transnationality in
Latino/a texts. Students may engage in group research into Latino/a
cultures of New York and New Jersey.
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21:352:325
Survey of American Literature to 1860 (3)
The course surveys poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from the colonial period to the Civil War. It stresses the variety and vitality of the country's early literature while placing works into historical and cultural contexts.
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21:352:326
Survey of American Literature After 1860 (3)
The course surveys American literature from the period of the Civil War through modern times, putting most emphasis on works of the 20th century. Because this is a period of enormous and richly varied literary activity, it is nearly impossible to "cover," and each version of the course will therefore reflect the perspective and preferences of its individual instructor.
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21:352:333
American Drama (3)
A survey of American plays in their historical context from early
melodramas, romances, and comedies through the modern realistic and
expressionistic work of O'Neill, Odets, Anderson, Hellman, Miller,
Williams, Albee, Baraka, and others.
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21:352:337,338
American Literature of the 19th Century (3,3)
Studies in two or more related authors; emphasis on Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne, or Melville in the first semester and on Whitman, Twain, James, or Dickinson in the second semester.
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21:352:340
Asian-American Literature (3)
The course introduces poetry, fiction, and memoirs by writers from diverse Asian-American communities of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
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21:352:343,344
American Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries (3,3)
Major fiction, poetry, and other writing by Dreiser, Anderson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot, O'Neill, Dos Passos, Frost, Faulkner, or other recent American authors.
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21:352:348,349
Representations of Race in American Literature (3,3)
First semester: poetry, short fiction, autobiographies, and novels from the 19th to mid-20th centuries; second semester: texts from the 20th century. Texts by African-American, Native American, Hispanic, Asian-American, Jewish-American, and other "minority" or immigrant writers; emphasis on social, historical, and political contexts; and social construction of "race" and ethnicity.
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21:352:350
The Vietnam War and American Literature (3)
Interdisciplinary course exploring the interrelations between the U.S. war in Vietnam and American culture--before, during, and after. Students study fiction, poetry, autobiography, documentary films, and primary documents, including treaties, previously classified reports, and internal analyses written by the decision makers.
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21:352:351
Crime and Punishment in American Literature (3)
Crime and punishment in representative and influential works of American literature from the mid-19th century to the present.
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21:352:361
Studies in American Authors of the 19th Century (3)
Not a survey, this course looks at the writing of a few 19th-century American authors in some detail--and from a particular critical perspective.
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21:352:362
Studies in Modern American Authors (3)
This course looks at the writing of a small number of modern American authors in some detail and in relation to one another.
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21:352:363,364
The Novel in America (3,3)
First semester: novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries; second semester: novels of the 20th and 21st centuries. A diverse range of American novels by both canonical and noncanonical writers; emphasis on the social and historical contexts of fictional conventions.
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21:352:368,369
Special Topics in American Literature (3,3)
Topics change from year to year; specific topic noted in the Schedule of Classes.
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21:352:376
Modern American Poetry (3)
Poetry from the imagist revolt of the 1920s to the present: Frost, Stevens, Williams, Moore, Roethke, Lowell, Plath, Cummings, Sexton, and others.
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21:352:395
African-American Literature to 1900 (3)
Poetry and prose of African and African-American writers prior to the 20th century, with an emphasis upon slave narratives and the literature of abolitionism.
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21:352:396
African-American Literature After 1900 (3)
This course surveys modern writing by African-Americans with an emphasis upon the Harlem Renaissance.
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21:352:408
Perspectives on American Modernity (3)
Examines late 19th- and early 20th-century reflections on American
modernity and its accompanying literary innovations. Drawing on
scholarly discussions of modernity, imperialism, exile, postcolonial,
and comparative American studies, we read literature that grapples with
the historical conditions of migration, postreconstruction racial
discourses, industrialization, and expansionism. In addition to
relevant theoretical readings, readings may be drawn from a wide range
of American writers including Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Walt Whitman, José Martí, Frederick Douglass, Wong Chin Foo,
Helen Hunt Jackson, Stephen Crane, W.E.B. DuBois, Zitkala-sa, Sui Sin
Far, and C.L.R. James.
Prerequisite: 21:350:308.
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21:352:415
Seminar in 19th-Century American Literature (3)
Seminar for majors; the specific topic varies from semester to semester. See Schedule of Classes.
Prerequisite: 21:350:308.
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21:352:416
Seminar in 20th-Century American Literature (3)
Seminar for majors and minors; the specific topic varies from semester to semester. See Schedule of Classes.
Prerequisite: 21:350:308 or permission of instructor.
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21:352:420
Recent Trends in American Fiction (3)
American fiction from 1930 to the present.
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