English 45C

Other Readings and Media

"Gilman, C. P.: ""The Yellow Wallpaper""; James, H.: ""The Figure in the Carpet""; Conrad, J.: ""The Secret Sharer""; Faulkner, W.: The Sound and the Fury; Larsen, N.: Passing; Woolf, V.: Mrs. Dalloway; Dos Passos, J.: Manhattan Transfer;; DeLillo, D.: White Noise; as well as a course reader containing selected poetry, essays, and literary criticism by M. Arnold, Hecht, Pater, Wilde, Pound, H.D., Williams, Koch, T.S. Eliot, Hopkins, Frost, Macleish, Millay, cummings, G. Brooks, Cullen, H. Johnson, McKay, DuBois, G. Schuyler, and Langston Hughes, among others. "

Description

"In this course we will begin with a Victorian text and end with a postmodern one, but we will focus primarily on the intervening period of literary modernism. Topics for discussion will include the status of high art and artists in an era of mass culture; the interplay between formal innovation and ideological stance (is there any connection between ""radical"" stylistic experimentation and ""radical"" politics?); the rejection and/or acceptance of ""tradition"" and history; the implications of expatriatism and multiculturalism for national identity; and the politics of canon-formation, that is, which authors and texts are regularly read, how they are read, and by whom.



Written work for the course will consist of three 5- to 6-page essays; occasional pop quizzes given in lecture; and a final exam. Regular attendance at lecture and vigorous participation in section are also required. "