English 159 - Spring, 2023

Topics in the Novel

Topic: Social Activism & the Revolutionary Imagination In U.S. Film and Fiction

Class Information

Instructor: Solomon, Jeff
CRN: 62133
Time: TR 1:40-3:00pm
Location: 201 Wellman
GE Areas: Writing Experience

Description

This course will explore representations of social activism, political protest, and anti-racism in U.S. novels and films, from the early 20th Century to the present. We?ll examine a range of significant texts, noting the discursive strategies that artists and activists employ to challenge injustice or inequality. In our discussion of these texts, we?ll trace the new possibilities for expression that have emerged over the past century - as a result of developments in the arts (e.g. social realism, modernism, post-modernism), in concert with significant developments in social and political movements in US culture (e.g. feminism, the civil rights movement), and in dialogue with ?world-historical events? (e.g. WWII, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the Cold War). Ultimately, we will circle back to focus upon our own involvement and investment in the specific questions raised in these texts we examine, recognizing the historical and cultural influences they document, and drawing upon scholarly research to account for the ways that artistic texts can both respond to and shape contemporary understandings of justice in the US today.

Grading

Reading Quizzes & In-class activities - 20%
Researched Presentation & Report - 15%
Weekly Reading Responses - 45%
Final Researched Essay - 20%


Texts

The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Lonely Crusade, Chester Himes
Citizen 13660, Mine Okubo
The Revolt of the Cockroach People, Oscar Zeta Acosta
Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, Anna Deavere Smith
There There , Tommy Orange
Interior Chinatown: A Novel , Charles Yu
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Lonely Crusade, Chester Himes
The Revolt of the Cockroach People, Oscar Zeta Acosta
Citizen 13660, Mine Okubo
Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, Anna Deavere Smith
Interior Chinatown: A Novel , Charles Yu
There There , Tommy Orange