American Narratives II

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1735
Section	001
Instructor	George Shulman
Days	Tue
Time	6:20 PM - 9:00 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM

Notes/Restrictions

Prerequisite IDSEM-UG 1592 or IDSEM-UG 1712 or IDSEM-UG 1475, or permission of the instructor.

Description

The goal of this course is to create a conversation between post world war two North American literature, and contemporary political theory. We focus especially on the relationship between theorists making arguments using the genre of the treatise or monograph, and literary artists dramatizing protagonists acting in fictional worlds. What theoretical and political difference do differences of genre make in how readers (and citizens) apprehend and act in the world? But we also pursue more substantive questions. First, how is politics (and the meaning of democracy) represented and recast? Second, how do literary artists and theorists view the political role of language in the world, compared to the ways they use language in their texts? Third, how are issues of race and gender addressed? Fourth, what is the relationship between re-imagining (and redeeming) American nationhood, and in contrast, investing in post- (or anti-) national identifications? "Theorists" include Norman O. Brown, Sheldon Wolin, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Jacques Ranciere, Lauren Berlant, Kimberlee Crenshaw, and Eve Sedgwick; literary artists include Thomas Pynchon, Norman Mailer, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Allan Ginsberg, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Phillip Roth.

Syllabus

IDSEM-UG1735

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)