American Cultural Module
Lectures: 30
Seminars: 60
Tutorials: 60
ECTS credit: 10
Lecturer(s): doc. dr. Burazer Lara, prof. dr. Čerče Danica, prof. dr. Krevel Mojca
The course consists of three parts:
• Lectures Postmodern American Literature
• Seminars American Poetry of the 19th and 20th Centuries
• Tutorials American Society and Culture
Postmodern American Literature
• Introduction of various methodological approaches to literary works, especially the Geistesgeschichte-based methods of defining the characteristics of individual literary periods and historical epochs
• An overview of contemporary philosophical and sociological treatmnets of the s.c. postmodern epoch (esp. the theoretical contributions by Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson)
• Reading, analysis and classification of post WW2 literary works based on the above theoretical framework. Students familiarize themselves with selected representatives of the Beat generation, American Metafiction, literary cyberpunk, literary Avant-Pop, Generation X, hypertext fiction, etc.
• Critical survey of existing classifications, typologies and treatments of postmodern literature
American Poetry of the 19th and 20th Centuries
The seminar work is divided into eight thematic sections: the formative period of modern American poetry in the 19th century (W. Whitman, E. A. Poe, E. Dickinson); American modernism (E. Pond, T. S. Eliot, W. Stevens); traditionalism in modern American poetry (R. Frost, E. A. Robinson); the issue of African-American poetry (L. Hughes, C. Cullen, G. Brooks, L. Clifton); American experimental modernism (E. E. Cummings); the beat generation (A. Ginsberg, L. Ferlinghetti, G. Corso, G. Snyder); confessional poetry (S. Plath, R. Lowell); contemporary American poetry (J. Ashbery, C. Simic, M. Strand). A comprehensive study of these issues makes it possible for the students to critically assess the evolvement of American poetical thought in a wider national and international context.
American Society and Culture
American culture, geography, history (colonization, independence, settlement, immigration), society (basic values, religion, ethnic diversity, politics, education, economy), culture (film, music, television), sports.