Title: AMERICAN LITERATURE: 1960-PRESENT

PRQ:

(Honors) Between 1960 and the present, American writers have confronted a period of turbulent social and political change, of wide swings in their nation’s perspective and mood.  One result has been ongoing literary experimentation in all major genres, which has been given a kind of catch-all label: postmodernism.  Another result has been literary art particularly attuned to recording and defining the social movements of the day: Vietnam War literature, feminist writing, the Black Arts, lgbt literature, eco-lit.  And then there is the question of the place and meaning of literature in the new millennium--after 9/11 and during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This section of English 334 will explore especially the intersections between dramatic social change and the most amazing American fiction, poetry, and drama written since 1960.

Class attendance and active participation in class discussion; journal writing; one short essay; final research project; midterm and final exams.

Paul Lauter, ed., The Heath Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, 6^th ed.; several novels such as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, and Jonathon Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; at least one play, for instance Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.