English 10C-2 - Fall, 2013

Literatures in English III: 1900-Present

Class Information

Instructor: Backman, Russell
CRN: 32329
Time: MWF 3:10-4:00
Location: 207 Olson

Description

ENL 10C is the final course in the required three-part Literatures in English series. This course is designed to prepare you for upper-division work as an English major, and to provide you with close reading and literary research skills. The course requires extensive and dedicated reading and writing. We will focus on literature from 1900 to present, attending to a variety of formal experiments in relation to their particular locations in space and time. We will address British, American, and Anglophone literatures across the century in relation to the broad categories of Modernism and Postmodernism, while simultaneously troubling these distinctions through attention to textual specificity. We will pay special attention to texts that style themselves as cosmopolitan and those that emphasize their distinct regionality. Central the course will be an ongoing discussion of the construction, maintenance, and resistance to historical narratives.

Grading

Close Reading Paper (3-4p)
Midterm
Research Paper (6-8p)
Final Exam
Participation (including in-class work and quizzes)

Texts

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Course Reader, available at Classical Notes
The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Amos Tutuola
V., Thomas Pynchon