EL2023:04
American Literature
Townsville
Prerequisites: At least 6 units of EL subjects including 3 units of literature subjects
26 lectures, 10 tutorials. Second semester.
Staff: Professor P Pierce.
A selection of American fiction and poetry since 1850.
Learning Objectives:
- to broaden and intensify the literary-critical skills and understanding attained by students at earlier levels, particularly where essay-writing and extra-literary issues are concerned;
- to attain detailed knowledge of each of the set texts, their structures and narrative strategies;
- to acquire the ability to read the set texts in their cultural and historical contexts;
- to develop an understanding of the importance of some landmark American texts of the nineteenth century to the development of national myths;
- to develop an understanding of how twentieth-century American writing engages with those myths;
- to understand recent challenges to the authority of the American literary canon.
Assessment by two essays of 1,500 words (40%); tutorial participation (20%); one three-hour examination (40%).
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