English 146 - Spring, 2018

American Literature 1900-1945

Class Information

Instructor: Kitses, Jasmine
CRN: 61793
Time: TR 1:40-3:00
Location: 146 Olson

Description

This course will provide an overview of American literature written between 1900 and 1945. We will explore how developments in literary form correlate with the tumultuous social, technological, intellectual, and political conditions of modernity in the early to mid-twentieth- century US. We will closely attend to the ways major literary traditions—e.g., realism, regionalism, modernism, and the Harlem Renaissance—engage questions of national and personal identity in the wake of rapid industrialization, immigration, progressive social movements, imperialism, and global warfare.
Our shared course goals are: 1) to practice reading texts from the period closely while considering how historical change shapes what counts as good literature; 2) to gain an understanding of the major literary movements in the U.S. between the turn of the century and World War II, and apply this knowledge through contextual and formal analysis, and 3) to write analytical essays with sophisticated arguments that are logically developed and adequately substantiated by textual evidence.

Grading

Two papers; reading quizzes, 2 short "dissections," class participation, final

Texts

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Jean Toomer, Cane
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Eugene O' Neill, A Long Day's Journey Into Night