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Courses & Schedules
English 149-2 - Fall, 2018
Topics in Literature
Topic: TO BE ANNOUNCED
Class Information
Instructor:
Clearwater, Michael
CRN:
43332
Time:
MWF 2:10-3:00
Location:
103 Wellman
Description
Contemporary political discourse abounds with stories people tell about welfare. Narratives of “personal responsibility,” upward mobility, and “welfare queens” are powerfully persistent, even as they have been discredited by social and political science. In this course we will examine how contemporary Anglophone fiction has represented welfare and its recipients in ways that are often at odds with dominant political narratives. In this course, we will consider how these fictional representations offer various counter-narratives that complicate our understanding of what welfare is and what it does.
Grading
Two essays, final exam, three short writing exercises, and participation
Texts
In the Ditch
, Buchi Emecheta
Bastard out of Carolina
, Dorothy Allison
Trainspotting
, Irvine Welsh
Push
, Sapphire
The Financial Lives of Poets
, Jess Walter
