English 10C-1 - Fall, 2016

Literatures in English III: 1900-Present

Class Information

Instructor: Yazell, Bryan
CRN: 32377
Time: TR 10:30-11:50
Location: 80 SS/Hum. Bldg.

Description

The culminating class in a three-part series, English 10C is designed to provide you the analytical tools for upper-division work within the major. We will be discussing the emergence not only of specific literary genres and movements from 1900 to the present—with particular focus on modernism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism—but also the social and philosophical trends that give shape to and are shaped by these literatures. To this end, we will be reading a variety of sources including (but not limited to) novels, short stories, poetry, drama and critical essays. This course is both reading and writing intensive, and it also requires significant classroom discussion and participation.

The core questions we will consider throughout will require careful attention to the intersection of form and genre with issues involving race, gender, and diaspora in the twentieth century. How does the increasing diversity of literatures in English—spurred in part, for example, by the global decolonization movement on one hand and urban migration on the other—influence or otherwise give rise to aesthetic innovation? As we consider questions along these lines, we will scrutinize the various transnational exchanges that undergird our understanding of English literature as it has appeared to us over the last century.

Grading

Five 500-word Argumentative Responses: 25%
Research Paper: 25%
Reading Quizzes (10 total): 10%
Participation and Discussion: 20%
Final Exam: 20%

Texts

Passing (9780142437278), Larsen
To the Lighthouse (9780156030472), Woolf
Waiting for Godot (9780802144423), Beckett
The God of Small Things (978-0812979657), Roy
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (9781594483295), Díaz