Contemporary North American Literature

Year
0
Academic year
2019-2020
Code
01011560
Subject Area
Literature-Anglo-American Studies
Language of Instruction
Portuguese
Other Languages of Instruction
English
Mode of Delivery
Face-to-face
Duration
SEMESTRIAL
ECTS Credits
6.0
Type
Elective
Level
1st Cycle Studies

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Lectures (for contextualization and presentation of theoretical tools for textual analysis) will lay the basis for the close reading of literary works. This preliminary approach will in turn enable critical reflection based on discussion-oriented activities, allowing for the students’ active engagement in learning. Written assignments and oral presentations are expected to reinforce the students’ learning and train their competence for autonomous research, which will be tested when they prepare their final essay.

Visual materials will occasionally be used to complement texts and presentations.

Learning Outcomes

Students will

– be made familiar with a range of contemporary American literary texts selected and organized in terms of one or more concerns, such as school or movement, mode or genre, theme or topic, author or ethnic group;

– extend and deepen their knowledge of American writing and its historical context acquired in former courses in American literature and culture;

– acquire useful theoretical or methodological tools that will further develop their reading skills and critical perspective. By the end of the course, students will be well prepared to undertake further study in this area.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

This course aims at the development of critical thinking about a central theme of American literature and culture: the construction of identities, at the individual, community, and national level. The contemporary prose narratives and/or volumes of verse that comprise the primary bibliography will be approached from the perspective of several American studies theories and fundamental concepts such as empire, democracy, religion, frontier, gender, race, ethnicity, war, etc. The notion of symbolic representation and the ideology at work in the angles and perspectives of that same representation will also be addressed.

 

N.B. The syllabus may change from edition to edition.

Head Lecturer(s)

Susana Isabel Arsénio Nunes Costa Araújo

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Oral presentations: 20% + Test: 20% + Synthesis work: 60% or Oral presentations: 20% + Test: 50% + Synthesis work:30%: 100.0%

Bibliography

Bercovitch, S. (1993). The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America. London: Routledge.
Kaplan, A. (2002). The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. Cambridge, Mass:Harvard UP.
Levine, L. (1996). The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History. Boston: Beacon P.
Morrison, T. (1992). Playing in the Dark. Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP.
Perkins, David.  (1989). A History of Modern Poetry, vol.s I & II. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Ramazani, J., Ellman, R., & O’Clair, R. ( 2003). The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. N.Y: W. W. Norton & Co.
Slotkin, R. (1996). Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.