LEARNING OUTCOMES

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.

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 of the xxth century;

- will be able to interpret these developments in English and Italian with reference to  , poetry, art, fiction, music 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

The course is composed of lectures as well as seminars. The latter will involve the active participation of students, who can engage in individual and/or group research and presentations. Three hours per week given in two classes (of 2 hours and 1 hour respectively).

LESSONS ARE IN ENGLISH.

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

Active attendance is highly recommended.

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

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course will deal with the African American tradition from Colonial America to the contemporary period. Every year through different texts and perspectives, students will focus on some issues like slavery, African tradition, the Middle Passage, slave narratives, segregation, relationship with the white and European tradition, the Civil Rights Movement, till the most recent expressions like Black Lives Matter.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Environment and African American experience”

The course will focus on the relationship between the environment and African Americans' experience.  Several traditions will be considered (white, Natives….) and several experiences (journeys, wilderness, migration).

The course will primarily deal with two novels by Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993:

Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)

Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2008)

Students are highly recommended to read the two novels before the beginning of lessons.

Additional texts and critical bibliography will be given during lessons.