English 100

Other Readings and Media

(to be selected from among the following): Fitzgerald, F.S.: The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, selected short stories, and essays by and about Fitzgerald; Hemingway, E.: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, In Our Time, The Old Man and the Sea, The Garden of Eden, selected short stories, journalism, and essays by and about Hemingway.

Description

In this seminar, we will read extensively and intensively in the fiction of these two iconic American modernists. We will attend especially to the ways that issues of gender, both femininity and masculinity, inform Fitzgerald�s and Hemingway�s writings and their lives, and the ways these issues have shaped the continuing critical reception of these two figures. Our discussions and your writing for the course will, ideally, combine close attention to narrative form with cultural analysis. Topics for discussion may include modernist and popular authorship; travel, tourism, and expatriation; mass culture, celebrity, and conspicuous consumption; primitivism and technology; narrative technique and style; and the politics of literary canonization. Requirements for the course include 2 short essays (2-3 pages); 1 longer essay (8-10 pages); at least 1 in-class presentation; and regular attendance and active participation in all class meetings.