English 10C-3 - Winter, 2013

Literatures in English III: 1900 to Present

Class Information

Instructor: Williamson, Alan B.
CRN: 74369
Time: TR 12:10-1:30
Location: 1020 Wickson

Description

Our approach to Modernism could be called "the divided self" or "the unknown self." The advent of psychoanalysis expanded the areas of subjective experience considered significant--dreams, free associations--but at the same time made the self more mysterious, since many of our motivations were held to be unconscious. After a brief glance at Freud, we will examine the literary consequences of these changes in the "stream-of-consciousness" novel and the American "confessional" poetry of midcentury. We will conclude by looking at the intersection of individual and ethnic identity in a novel by a major Native American writer.

Grading

Participation 10%; two explication papers, 20% each; longer thematic paper, 25%; final exam, 25%.

Texts

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Ariel, Sylvia Plath
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko