English 10C-2 - Spring, 2013

Literatures in English III: 1900-Present

Class Information

Instructor: Lloyd, David
CRN: 42329
Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Location: 105 Olson

Description

This is the third course in the required Literatures in English sequence, with this installment focusing on Anglophone literature between 1900 and the present day. This sequence is designed to prepare majors to succeed in upper division courses. To that end, this will be a reading and writing intensive course. We will survey a variety of genres and periods of anglophone literature of the 20th century, commencing with Irish, British and US modernism and then exploring the legacies of and reactions to modernism later in the century. The course will explore transformations in the modes of writing of poetry, prose and drama, asking what political, social and cultural pressures might have influenced such transformations. It will consider the history of literature in relation to histories of race and slavery, colonialism and nationalism. Students will be expected to come to class having read the assigned texts carefully and to engage in in-class discussion, as a principal goal of the course is to develop skills in reading closely and attentively and in articulating insights into aesthetic forms both orally and in writing.

Grading

Two short critical response papers (2pp each): 20%
Midterm essay (4 pp): 20%
Final essay 6 pp : 30%
Final exam: 20%
Participation: 10%

Texts

Atomik Aztex, Sesshu Foster
Middle Passages, Kamau Brathwaite
Passing, Nella Larsen
Endgame, Samuel Beckett
Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys