English 10C-1 - Spring, 2015

Literature in English III: 1900-Present

Class Information

Instructor: Recker, Laurel
CRN: 32391
Time: MWF 10:00-10:50
Location: 102 Hutch

Description

Myth, Memory, and the Modern

"On or about December 1910 human character changed."
-Virginia Woolf

Twentieth-century writers often claim to “break” with the past as they usher in a new era of literary innovation. Yet, in a dynamic century marked by themes of world war, revolution, technology, and globalization, the form and content of literature reveal an obsession with “the past”—and a deep suspicion of it. This course will examine how, on both sides of the Atlantic, a preoccupation with the past becomes intertwined with the desire to recover individual and collective memories. As we trace the developments of modernism(s) and postmodernism(s), we will also explore how these texts interrogate narratives of personal, regional, and national histories. We will discover how twentieth-century novels, stories, and poems integrate fragments of the past as they work to construct new ways to use language and tell stories.

Grading

Close reading essay: 20%
Midterm: 20%
Homework (including blogs):25%
Participation/Attendance: 10%
Annotated Bibliography: 5%
Final Exam: 20%

Texts

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
Native Son, by Richard Wright
Everything Is lluminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Course Reader, with essays, poems & stories