LITERATURE AND POLITICS
This is a course on American literature and culture, seen in relation to American history, institutions and politics, and taking into account the concurrent presidential elections of November 2016. The course, beginning in October, can be taken for 6 (semester I), 9 (semester II), or 12 CFU (semester II plus seminar).
The course aims to familiarize students with major trends of American culture and with important works in different genres (fiction, essay, drama, poetry, film). Students will learn how to analyze such works competently from a historical and generic perspective
At the completion of the course the student
- will have become familiar with major American historical and cultural developments, and with some major American writers and texts;
- will be able to interpret these developments in English and Italian with reference to fiction, poetry, drama and literary theory;
- will be able to contextualize and analyze texts and documents of notable complexity and historical significance and describe their cultural and linguistic peculiarities.
This is a lecture course. In Semester I there will be 3 hours per week given in 2 classes; in Semester II, two hours per week (only for students who wish to acquire 9/12 CFU). There will also be a weekly seminar in Semester I for students who wish to acquire 12CFU (optional for students for 9CFU). Students must enroll for this course in Aulaweb where they will find weekly notes & resources.
Part of the course will concern American governmental institutions, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, checks & balances, etc. We will go on to consider how the American dream has been presented and criticized in major works by Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, James, in Mark Twain’s satire, and in major 20th-century works (Fitzgerald, Salinger, Singer, Miller, Bellow, Munro...).
Reading List (provisional & indicative)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables
Herman Melville, White Jacket
Arthur Miller, The Crucible
Mark Twain, The Gilded Age
Wallace Stevens, Il mondo come meditazione (Guanda)
Henry David Thorau, Walden
Walt Whitman, Calamus and other poems; Democratic Vistas
Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending
An Outline of American Government
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/government-1991/
Week of October 10, 2016
EXAMINATION PROCEDURE There will be a written exam (3 hours), which can be taken in February, June-July, September-October 2017 or February 2018. The exam is in three parts: Part 1 - Fill in the blank (10 questions); Part 2 - Short Answer (5 questions); Part 3 - Essay questions (Answer 3 questions chosen from a list). Students are also encouraged to write after taking the written exam a 1,500-word paper on a subject agreed upon with lecturer. PLAGIARISMS ARE UNACCEPTABLE AND WILL LEAD TO A LOWER OR FAIL GRADE.
See Examination Procedure. The written exams are graded by the lecturer and a colleague in the same discipline who have previously agreed on criteria of evaluation, as outlined in class.
