1. Reading and writing America: Some introductions.
- Initial encounters; lasting impressions
- The beginnings of American literature
- Geography; history; literature
- Early American texts
- ‘Fables of discovery; fables of founding’
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- Introduction to The Great Gatsby
- Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age
- The Great Gatsby and the American Dream
- The craft of The Great Gatsby
- Race and immigration in The Great Gatsby
- Nick as narrator; Nick’s assessment of Gatsby
3. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
- Introduction to As I Lay Dying
- Context: the Deep South, the Great Depression and rural poverty
- As I Lay Dying – narrative technique and literary modernism
- Addie Bundren’s monologue
- Faulkner reading aloud
4. Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony - I
- Introduction to Ceremony
- Introduction to Leslie Marmon Silko
- Writing an oral tradition; reading a written text out loud
- Orientations in space and time
- ‘Sacred time’: Disrupted chronology and the sequence of the plot
- Betraying tribal secrets?: The Ceremony controversy
5. Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony - II
- The form of Ceremony: Introduction
- Impressions of the poetry sections
- Close reading: how do the prose and the poetry relate?
- The form of Ceremony and modernist narrative technique
- Conclusions and reflections
- Further reading in Native American literature
6. Toni Morrison, Beloved - I
- Your first impressions of the novel
- Introduction to Beloved
- Important contexts
- Characters, plot and themes
- Two key moments in Beloved
- From history to fiction – the story of Margaret Garner
- Reflections so far: A bench by the road
7. Toni Morrison, Beloved - II
- Introduction to Beloved II: Memory, rememory, re-membering
- ‘The print origins of black literature . . . were slave narratives’
- 'She took from everywhere, knew everything . . . and made it her own’: Cultural traditions in Beloved
- Re-membering the middle passage
- Conclusion and reflections
8. Philip Roth, American Pastoral - I
- Introduction to American Pastoral
- Context, character, plot and themes
- Nathan Zuckerman and narrative technique
- Merry Levov
9. Philip Roth, American Pastoral - II
- Introduction to American Pastoral II
- The ending of American Pastoral
- Classical and Biblical traditions in American Pastoral
- The reception of American Pastoral and of Philip Roth
10. The great American novel?
- Grand poll
- ‘In search of the best’
- The female frontier or American masters?
- ‘A tribe of mavericks’?
- Final reflections
We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.
