Fall 2013
COURSE DESIGNATION: AMERICAN LITERATURE 4
COURSE TITLE: A SEARCH FOR IDENTITY in POSTWAR AMERICAN LITERATURE
Time & Place: Tue16. 00- 17.40, Lecture Hall II., Mbl
Instructor: Lenke Németh
/Office Hours: Tue 13. 00 – 13. 50, Thu 10. 00– 11.00,Rm 118, Mbl.
Tel.: 52 512 900/22069
SYLLABUS
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to study a recurrent, archetypal theme in American literature, the quest for identity as manifested in a representative sample of post-WW II American fiction and short fiction. Through a close reading of prominent and thought-provoking works from the given period our primary concern will be to explore how the multicultural America shapes and influences identity formation, and in turn, how the constantly changing notions of ethnic, racial, gender, and cultural identity reflect the dynamically changing American culture. Beside the thematic concern, theoretical and intellectualconsiderations impacting upon identity construction will also be discussed.
Authors selected for the course come from different ethnic and racial background:Jewish American Saul Bellow (1915-2005), BernardMalamud (1914-1986), and J. D. Salinger (1919- 2010);African American Ralph Ellison (1914-1994), Ernest J. Gaines (1933-), and Alice Walker (1944-); Indian-American Bharati Mukherjee (1940-); Hispanic American (Chicana) Sandra Cisneros (1955-); and white American Joyce Carol Oates (1938-).
REQUIREMENTS
Participation in class discussions.To facilitate active participation in discussions you are expected to come prepared to the sessions and raise one question pertaining to the literary work on the agenda and one question pertaining to the critical study assigned.
Presentation: in a max. 10-minute in-class oral presentation students are required to highlight the significance of a selected text/author or discuss main points treated in a scholarly article related to the work(s) on the agenda. Sign-up for these presentations will take place during the orientation session on Sep 17th.
Response paper: a one-page response paper (handed in printed atthe beginning of each class) reflects on the main points of the critical reading assigned.
Mid-term paper: will check your familiarity with the material read and discussed up to that time.
Endterm paper:an in-class examination comprising brief definitions and essay questions assessing your familiarity with the material covered during the semester.
Research paper: A research essay of about 1,200 to 1,400 words should be written on a topic related to the thematic concerns of the course. It should contain at least TWO printed sources quoted. Deadline of submission: December 13th(Week 13).
Formal and academic requirements: the essay is to be submitted by the defined deadline, otherwise the grade will be lowered. Secondary reading and scholarly documentation, conforming to the requirements of the MLA Style Sheet, are required. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty will result in a failure as described in the Academic Handbook of the Institute.
Format: 2,5 cm margins, double spaced, full and correct citation, alphabetical works cited (MLA Style), fastened, with student’s name on each page.
The cover sheet must contain the following statement: “Hereby I certify that the essay conforms to international copyright and plagiarism rules and regulations,” and also the signature of the student.
ASSESSMENT
presentation:10%
response paper: 10%
participation:10%
midterm paper:20%
endterm paper: 20%
research paper: 30%
Required Texts
Novels: any edition. Short fiction: AN 306 course packet. The critical studies are placed in a file in the Institute Library (Rm 101) with the exception of articles available on electronic databases (JSTOR and Project Muse).
COURSE SCHEDULE
Sept 9 - 13REGISTRATION WEEK
(1) Sep 17 Orientation
(2) Sep 24
Saul Bellow, Seize the Day (1956)Morahg Gilead. “The Art of Dr. Tamkin.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: SaulBellow. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 147-57.
(3) Oct 1
Bernard Malamud, "The Magic Barrel" (1958), "The Jewbird" (pd. in 1963 in The Reporter)Gerald J. Kennedy. “Parody as Exorcism: ‘The Raven’ and ‘The Jewbird.’ Joel Salzberg, ed. Critical Essays on Bernard Malamud. Boston: G, K. Hall, 1987
(4) Oct 8
Ernest J. Gaines, “The Sky is Grey” (1968)Walter R. McDonald, “’You not a Bum, You a Man’: Ernest J Gaines’s Bloodline.” Negro American Literature Forum 9.2 (1975): 47-49. JSTOR
(5) Oct 15
Alice Walker, The Color Purple(1982) pp. 1-121(6) Oct 22
Alice Walker, The Color Purple(1982) pp. 122-253Lindsey Tucker. “Alice Walker's The Color Purple: Emergent Woman, Emergent Text“
Black American Literature Forum 22. 1, Black Women Writers Issue (1988): 81-95. JSTOR
Excerpts from the film adaptation dir. by Steven Spielberg, The Color Purple (1985)
(7)Oct 29CONSULTATION WEEEK
(8)Nov 5
MIDTERM PAPER(9) Nov 12
J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye (1952)Danielle M. Roemer, “The Personal Narrative and Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"
Western Folklore 51.1 (1992), 5-10. JSTOR
(10) Nov 19
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)Prologue, Chapters 1-11(11) Nov 26
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)Chapters 12-25Tony Tanner, “The Music of Invisibility.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: Ralph Ellison, New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
(12) Dec 3
Joyce Carol Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1970),Cruise James, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and Cold War Hermeneutics,SouthCentralReview 22.2 (2005): 95-109. Project Muse
(13) Dec 10
Sandra Cisneros (1955-), The House on Mango Street (1984)Jacequeline Doyle, “More Room of her Own: Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, MELUS 19.4 (1994): 5-35. JSTOR
Dec 13 RESEARCH PAPER DUE
(14) Dec 17Endterm paper
A Short List of Recommended Secondary Sources
Abádi-Nagy Zoltán. Válság és komikum: A hatvanas évek amerikai regénye.Budapest:
Magvető, 1982.
---. Az amerikai minimalista próza.Budapest: Argumentum, 1994.
---. Mai amerikai regénykalauz, 1970-1990.Budapest: Intera, 1995.
---. “Toni Morrison.” Mai amerikai regénykalauz, 1970-1990. Budapest: 1995.
379-81.
---. “Salamon-ének.” Mai amerikai regénykalauz 81-85.
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven. New York: Grove P, 2005.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. 7: Prose
Writing, 1940-1990 and vol. 8. Poetry and Criticism, 1940-1995. Ed. Cyrus R. K.
Patell. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Bigsby, Christopher. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Cambridge: CUP, 2006.
Barrett, Lindon. Blackness and Value.Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Lib
Bloom, Harold. Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street.New York: Infobase, 2010.
Bollobás, Enikő. Az amerikai irodalom története.Budapest: Osiris, 2005. Lib
Bradbury, Malcolm, and Richard Ruland. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature.New York: Penguin, 1991.
Brown, Susan Windisch. Contemporary Novelists. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
Cheyfitz, Eric, ed. The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United
States Since 1945.New York: Columbia UP, 2006.
Conner, Marc. C., ed. The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison: Speaking the Unspeakable.Jackson:
P of Mississippi, 2000. Lib
---. “From the Sublime to the Beautiful: The Aesthetic Progression of Toni Morrison.” Conner
49-76.
De Weever, Jacqueline. Mythmaking and Metaphor in Black Women’s Fiction.New York:
St. Martin’s, 1991.
Dickson-Carr, Darryl. The Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction.
New York: Columbia UP, 2005.
Dixon, Melvin. Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afro-American Literature.Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1987.
Evans, Mari, ed. Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation.New York: Anchor,
1984.
Fisher, Dexter, ed. The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States.Boston:
Houghton, 1980.
Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States.New York:
Columbia UP, 1988.
---. Columbia History of the American Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.
Fellner, Astrid. Articulating Selves: Contemporary Chicana Self-Representation. Wien: Braumüller,2002.
Ford, Boris, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 9. American
Literature. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Furman, Jan. Toni Morrison’s Fiction. Understanding Contemporary American Literature.
1996.Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1999.
Gray, Richard. American Poetry of the Twentieth Century.London: Longman, 1990.
---. A History of American Literature.London: Blackwell, 2004.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism.
New York: Oxford UP, 1988.
---, ed. Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology.New York: Meridian, 1990. Lib
Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity.London: Sage, 1996.
Hassan, Ihab. Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel.Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1961.
---. Contemporary American Literature, 1945-1972: An Introduction.New York: Ungar,
1973.
Heiney, Donald, and Lenthiel H. Downs. Recent American Literature after 1930. New
York: Barron’s, 1973.
Harris, Trudier. “Song of Solomon.” Fiction and Folklore 84-115.
Hilfer, Tony. American Fiction since 1940.London: Longman, 1992.
Hirsh, Marianne. The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989. Lib
Hite, Molly. The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989. Lib
Hoffman, Daniel, ed. Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. Cambridge.
MA: Harvard UP, 1979.
Hooks, Bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto, 1992.
---. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1993.
Horton, W. Rod and Herbert W. Edwards. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought.
New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1967. Lib
Kamp, Jim, ed.. Reference Guide to American Literature. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James
Press,1994.
Klein, Marcus. After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century.Cleveland:
Meridian, 1965.
Logsdon, Loren, and Charles W. Mayer, eds. Since Flannery O’Connor: Essays on
the Contemporary American Short Story.Macomb, ILL: Western Illinois U, 1987.
Országh László, and Virágos Zsolt. Az amerikai irodalom története.Budapest: Eötvös
József, 1997.
Manzanas, Ana Maria, ed. Border Transits: Literature and Culture Across the Line. Critical Approaches to Ethnic American Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.
Marini, Jay. The Columbia History of American Poetry: From the Puritans to Our Time.
New York: Columbia, 1993.
Morrison, Jago. Contemporary Fiction. New York: Rotledge, 2003.
Peach, Linden. Toni Morrison. Macmillan Modern Novelists. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1995.
Second edition. 2000.
Rainwater, Catherine, and William J. Sheick, eds. Contemporary American Women
Writers.Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1985.
Reynolds, Guy. Twentieth-Century American Women’s Fiction: A Critical Introduction.
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999.
Riggs, Thomas, ed. Contemporary Poets. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
Rudman, Jack. American Literature: Civil War to the Present.
Ruland, Richard, and Malcolm Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Tallack, Douglas. Twentieth-Century America: The Intellectual and Cultural
Context.London: Longman 1991.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970.New York: Harper, 1971.
Virágos Zsolt. A négerség és az amerikai irodalom. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1975.
---. Cf. Országh László. Lib
Weaver, Gordon, ed. The American Short Story, 1945-1980: A Critical History. Hall:
Twayne, 1983.
Willis, Susan. Specifying: Black Women Writing the American Experience.Madison: U of
Wisconsin P, 1987. IL
---. “Eruptions of Funk: Historicizing Toni Morrison.” Willis 83-109. Lib
Wood, Michael. “Sensations of Love.” Conner 113-24. Lib
Theoretical works:
Hooks, Bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto. 1992.
Chapter Two: Continued Devaluation of Black Womanhood (51-87)
Chapter Three: The Imperialism of Patriarchy (87-119)
Chapter four: Racism and Feminism: The Issue of Accountability (119-159)
Chapter five: Black Women and Feminism (159-197)
Bigsby, C. W. E. “What, then, is the American?” Bigsby 1-32.
Sollors, Werner. “African Americans since 1900.” Bigsby 153-173.
Kleinberg, S.J. “Women in the Twenntieth Century.” Bigsby 194-214.
Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity.London: Sage, 1996.
Chapter 4: Bhabha, Homi K. “Culture’s In-Between.” (53-61)
Chapter 6: Grossberg, Lawrence. “Identity and Cultural Studies – Is That All There Is?” (87-108)
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. London: Penguin, 1945.
Chapter 5 (79-112)
Texts for in-class presentationsAneja, Anu. “’Jasmine,’ The Sweet Scent of Exile.” PacificCoast Philology 28.1. (1993): 72-80. JSTOR
Bethea, Arthur F. “Raymond Carver’s Inheritance form Ernest Hemingway’s Literary Technique.” The Hemingway Review 26.2 (2007):89-104. (E)
Bryan,James. “The Psychological Structure of The Catcher in the Rye.” PMLA 89. 5 (1974):1065-1074. JSTOR
Edwards,June. “Censorship in the Schools: What's Moral about "The Catcher in the Rye?" The English Journal 72. 4 (1983): 39-42.
Gilead, Morahg. “The Art of Dr. Tamkin.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: SaulBellow. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 147-157. Print
James, Cruise. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and Cold War Hermeneutics,SouthCentralReview 22.2 (2005): 95-109 (Project Muse)
Kain,Geoffrey. “Suspended Between Two Worlds": Bharati Mukherjee's "Jasmine" andthe Fusionof Hinduand American Myth.”Journal of South Asian Literature 28.1/2 (1993): 151-58. JSTOR
Kennedy, Gerald J. “Parody as Exorcism: ‘The Raven’ and ‘The Jewbird.’ Joel Salzberg, ed. Critical Essays on Bernard Malamud. Boston: G, K. Hall, 1987. Print
Krumholz, Linda. “Dead Teachers: Rituals of Manhood and Rituals of Reading in Song of Solomon.” Modern Fiction Studies 39.3-4 (1993): 551-74. (Project Muse)
McDonald, Walter R. “’You not a Bum, You a Man’: Ernest J Gaines’s Bloodline.” Negro American Literature Forum 9.2 (1975): 47-49. JSTOR
Petry, Alice Hall. “Alice Walker: The Achievement of the Short fiction.” Modern Language Studies 19. 1 (1989): 12-27. JSTOR
Reynolds, Richard. "'The Magic Barrel': Pinye Salzman's Kadish." Studies in Short Fiction, 10.1 (1973): 100-02. Print.
Richmond, Lee J. “The Maladroit, the Medico, and the Magician: Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day.” Twentieth Century Literature 19.1 (1973):15-26. JSTOR
Szadziuk, Maria. "Culture as Transition: Becoming a Woman in Bi-Ethnic Space.” Mosaic 32.3 (1999): 109-129. (E)
Stepto, Robert B. “Literacy and Hibernation: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.”
Tanner, Tony. “The Music of Invisibility.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: Ralph Ellison, New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Print
Theriot, D. Michele. “The Eternal Present in Joyce Carol Oates’s ‘Where Are You going , Where Have You Been?’” A Journal of the Short Story in English 48 (Spring 2007) (E)
Watts, Eileen H. “Jewish Self-Hatred in Malamud’s “The Jewbird.” Varieties of Ethnic Criticism. 21.2 (1996): 157-63.
Whitfield, Stephen J. “Cherished and Cursed: Toward a Social History of The Catcher in the Rye.” The New England Quarterly 70. 4 (1997): 567-600. JSTOR
Miscellaneous Remarks
[1] Absences
It is essential to attend ALL the classes. If you must miss a class because of illness or emergency, please let me know, and arrange to complete any work missed.
[2] Response Papers
Your response papers are due in class on the assigned days. There is no late paper policy. The presentation deadlines are NOT negotiable.
[3] Plagiarism
Plagiarism of any kind will result in a failing grade for the seminar.