"UNDERSTANDING THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS: FROM THE FIRST EXPLORERS TO GLOBAL WARMING"
This course examines the role of wilderness in the literature and culture of the United States. From the colonial contacts with wilderness the course will explore several representations belonging to different cultural traditions of this space. Texts writen by native, white and African-American authors will be considered. Special attention will be given to both the female and male perspectives on wilderness.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
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.
LEARNING OUTCOMES (FURTHER INFO)
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.
TEACHING METHODS
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.
SYLLABUS/CONTENT
This course focuses on some of the most relevant ways in which American literature and culture has dealt with the physical environment, considering texts from both narrative and nonfictional prose, and with also some attention to poetry. Lessons will offer a close reading of the three novels in bibliography while other texts will be introduced to follow the changes the idea of wilderness has undergone from the colonial period to the XXI century.
READING LIST
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Toni Morrison, A Mercy
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Chapter 1)
John Winthrop Modell of Christian Charity (extracts)
William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation (extraxts)
Turner “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (extracts)
John O’Sullivan “Manifest Destiny” (extracts)
PAOLA ANNA NARDI (President)
MASSIMO BACIGALUPO
Lessons will start on the 26th of February 2018
ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE
