LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims at  familiarizing students with major trends of American culture and with important works in different genres (fiction, essays, poetry, movies, visual arts). Students will learn how to analyze such works competently from a historical and textual perspective

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

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.

PREREQUISITES

Preferably, students should already have taken an introductory course in American literature. However, personal interest and a good background in reading literature may be sufficient to participate usefully in this course. A fair knowledge of English (B2 or superior level) and an ability to follow complex historical and cultural arguments are also required. Erasmus students are welcome.

TEACHING METHODS

Course with lectures in English and seminar activities, workgroups, and close-readings.

Students who are unable to attend will have to read some supplementary material.

For students who decide to come to lessons, attendance is mandatory for 28 hours out of 36 and 13 hours out of 18 (75% of the course). Attendance is checked through signatures. 

Attendance is strongly recommended.

Lessons are in English.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course of the second year aims at introducing the essential elements of the literature and culture of the United States through some of the fundamental texts of the period from the end of the 19th century to the contemporary period. Every year through different texts and perspectives, students will focus on issues like the literature of the West, the South, the urban development, racial tensions, ethnic literature, environmental issues, Realism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. These topics will be presented in various courses that will deal with different spaces: New England, Midwest, West, the South, and the American city.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

“The Literature and Culture of the Midwest”

The course focuses on the literature and culture of the Midwest, the American heartland, and one of the most representative spaces of the United States. Through a selection of a wide variety of literary texts, students will be introduced to different issues, among which, pioneer’s life in the Midwest, the African-American experience in Chicago ghettos, the pastoral beauty of the natural landscape, the surviving strategies of Native tribes, the devastation of the environment, small towns of the American Province, life on the road.

Authors that might be included in the course for both attending/non-attending students (reading list to be integrated/modified)

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)

Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories (2011), selected short stories

Willa Cather, O Pioneers (1913)/ My Antonia (1919), selected short-stories

Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1984), selected short stories

Jim Harrison, Dalva (1988), selected poems

William Hathaway, The Blood on the Forge, (1941)

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, (1949) selected essays

Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, (1920)

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (1980)

David Foster Wallace, selected short stories and essays

Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)

Slides, as well as further teaching material used during lessons, will be available on aulaweb.

Students who are unable to attend will be given specific critical readings.