[ENGL 602] American Literature and Culture since 1900

Course Title: American Literature and Culture since 1900

Course Description

This course focuses on exploring major movements, authors, and texts in American literature since 1900. Through close reading of representative poetry, drama, and nonfiction, students will examine developments from modernism to the present.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze representative works of American literature since 1900.
• Understand major literary movements from modernism to contemporary.
• Engage with critical scholarship to contextualize primary texts.

Course Contents

Unit I: Naturalism to Modernism (12 Hours)

1. F. T. Marinetti, from Manifesto of Futurism
2. Susan Glaspell, "Trifle"
3. Gertrude Stein, "Introduction" to Making of America
4. Robert Frost, "After Apple-Picking"; "Design"
5. Ezra Pound, "Queen-Anne's-Lace" and "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
6. Eugene O' Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night

Unit II: The Harlem Renaissance and Diversity (9 Hours)

1. Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B"
2. Claude McKay, "The Lynching" and "Harlem Shadows"
3. Katherine Anne Porter, "Flowering Judas"
4. Zora Neale Hurston, "Sweat"
5. Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel"; "Incident"

Unit III: Mid-century Voices and Postwar Identity (9 Hours)

1. Theodore Roethke, "I Knew a Woman" and "My Papa's Waltz"
2. Eudora Welty, "Petrified Man"
3. Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"
4. Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
5. John Cheever, "The Swimmer"
6. James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"
7. Flannery O' Conner, "Good Country People"

Unit IV: Postmodernism and Beyond (9 Hours)

1. Toni Morrison, "Recitatif"
2. Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus"
3. John Ashbery, "Soonest Mended"
4. Don DeLillo, White Noise (Part II)
5. Alice Walker, "Everyday Use"

Unit V: Contemporary Narratives and Global America (9 Hours)

1. Sandra Cisneros, "Woman Hollering Creek"
2. Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Warrior Woman"
3. Sherman Alexie, "A Navajo Monument Valley Tribal School"
4. Joy Harjo, "White Bear"
5. Jhumpa Lahiri, "Sexy"
6. Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"

Evaluation Scheme

Internal Evaluation

External Examination

Prescribed Text

Elliot, Michael A. et al., eds. Norton Anthology of American Literature [Shorter Edition]. Volume II, W.W. Norton, 2017.