American Literature and Culture II

Recommended Prerequisites

Students are expected to be proficient in English for a good command of the primary and critical bibliography and also to have attened the curricular unit of the 1st semester of Literature and Culture in English: American Studies.

Teaching Methods

Seminar sessions will combine lectures and discussion of texts and other materials proposed for each session, as well as oral presentations by students. Individual oral presentation(s) will reinforce the students' analytical, argumentative, and dialogue skills, as well as give them practice in public speaking. The final essay will be on a topic previously agreed with the instructor and should reveal the student's capacity to select relevant bibliography, as well as competence to organize and present ideas with a considerable level of sophistication and critical acumen.

Learning Outcomes

This seminar will enable students to:

•  reinforce a critical awareness of the role of the USA in the past and in the contemporary world;
•  master the most recent theoretical debates and, specifically, the theories of American Studies;
•  deepen their critical perspective on the selected texts;
•  reinforce the ability to conduct rigorous and autonomous research in the field.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

In this seminar, we will strive to come to an understanding (by theorizing) of the “most powerful nation on the planet” in a century beginning under the spell of a profound crisis, which affects both the US and the world at large. From the Puritan origins of the American nation to the mythification and concomitant devastation of nature, from the violence of expansion to the sense of imperial mission, from the slave economy to the capitalist ethos, up to the most recent capitulation of politics to the financial markets, the American nation will be rigorously scrutinized as to its complex internal contradictions and its relations with other nations and other continents.

The syllabus may change indifferent editions of the course.

Head Lecturer(s)

Maria Isabel Carvalho Gomes Caldeira Sampaio dos Aidos

Assessment Methods

Continuous Assessment
In-class participation and oral presentations: 40.0%
Synthesis work: 60.0%

Bibliography

Hedges, C. & Sacco, J. (2012). Days of Destruction Days of Revolt.New York: Nation Books.

Moos, D. (2005). Outside America. Race, Ethnicity, and the Role of the American West. Hanover,NH: UP of New England.

Johnson, C. (2007). Nemesis. The Last Days of the American Republic.New York: Metropolitan Books.

Fletcher, A. (2004). A New Theory of American Literature: Democracy, the Environment, and the Future of Imagination. Harvard UP.

Kessler-Harris, A. (2001). The Pursuit of Equity. Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship.Oxford UP.

Harding, S. & Narayan, U. (Eds.) (2000),Decentering the Center. Philosophy forMulticultural, Postcolonial,and Feminist World. Bloomington: Indiana UP.

Layne, C. et al. (2007). American Empire: A Debate. Routledge.

Bender, T. (2006). A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History. New York: Hill and Wang.

Levander, C. F. & Levine, R. S. (Eds.) (2008). Hemispheric American Studies: Essays Beyond theNation. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP.