English 203

Graduate Readings: American Genres

Section	Semester	Instructor	Time	Location	Course Areas
4	Fall 2018	Serpell, C. Namwali	TTh 2-3:30	180 Barrows	American Literature Graduate Courses

Book List

Baum, L. Frank: The Wizard of Oz; Cain, James: The Postman Always Rings Twice / Double Indemnity; Cisneros, Sandra: House on Mango Street; Crichton, Michael: The Andromeda Strain; Highsmith, Patrica: The Talented Mr Ripley; Himes, Chester: Cotton Comes to Harlem; King, Stephen: Carrie; Kingston, Maxine Hong: The Woman Warrior; Le Guin, Ursula: A Wizard of Earthsea ; Lovecraft, H.P.: The Complete Fiction; Ludlum, Robert: The Bourne Identity; Portis, Charles: True Grit; Steel, Danielle: The Gift; Whitehead, Colson: Zone One

Description

In this course, we will read and discuss canonical works of American genre fiction published after 1900--except for the one we usually read: "literary fiction." Our genres will include: children's literature, mystery, spy thriller, romance, fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, noir, crime fiction, weird, western, zombie, and horror. While we will dip into scholarship along the way, our primary aim will be to use the novels themselves to generate our own theories of genre fiction. Two essays. One novel or two novellas a week, but they're all page turners!

NB: I won't be ordering books at the Cal bookstore but for the first two: Baum's The Wizard of Oz and Lovecraft's Complete Fiction.

This course satisfies the Group 5 (Twentieth Century) requirement.

Other Recent Sections of This Course

Fall, 2018

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: Allegorical Moments: Public, Private, and the Writing of Everyday Life	Hejinian, Lyn
203/5	Graduate Readings: Prospectus Workshop	Abel, Elizabeth

Spring, 2018

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: Radical Enlightenment?	Goldstein, Amanda Jo
203/2	Graduate Readings: The Novel in Theory	Hale, Dorothy J.
203/3	Graduate Readings: Prospectus and Grant Workshop	Thornbury, Emily V.
203/4	Graduate Readings: Digital Humanities for Medieval Studies	Nolan, Maura
203/5	Graduate Readings: Contemporary Chicanx/Latinx Novels	Gonzalez, Marcial

Fall, 2017

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: Caribbean Literature and Culture	Ellis, Nadia
203/2	Graduate Readings: Comparative Colonialisms: Latin America and the U.S.	Saldaña, Maria
203/3	Graduate Readings: Materiality	Flynn, Catherine

Spring, 2017

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: World Systems Theory and the Asian Anglophone Novel	Lye, Colleen
203/2	Graduate Readings: The Political Economy of Life and Death in African American Literature and Culture	JanMohamed, Abdul R.

Fall, 2016

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: On Life: Life Philosophy and Culture	Jones, Donna V.
203/2	Graduate Readings: Early African American Literature	Wagner, Bryan
203/3	Graduate Readings: Prospectus Workshop	Abel, Elizabeth
203/4	Graduate Readings: Lyric, Poetry, Poetics	Falci, Eric

Spring, 2016

Course & Section	Course Name	Course Areas
203/1	Graduate Readings: George Eliot and Victorian Science	Duncan, Ian
203/2	Graduate Readings: Aesthetics and Politics: Kant and Beyond	Goldsmith, Steven
203/3	Graduate Readings: Edmund Spenser	Landreth, David
203/4	Graduate Readings: What Does Critical Theory Have to Do with the Postcolonial?	Saha, Poulomi

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