Fall Syllabus #2: Grad Seminar, “American Literature after the American Century”!

I’m really excited about this one, too! This should be a great semester. I owe some thanks to Jodi Melamed and Priscilla Wald for this one.

GENERAL COURSE PLAN

WEEK 1: AMERICAN LITERATURE AFTER THE AMERICAN CENTURY

WEEK 2-4: CANONS AND TRIGGER WARNINGS: LOLITA

WEEK 4-6: POPULAR CULTURE(S): THE BODY SNATCHERS

WEEK 6-8: THEORIES AND IDENTITIES: DAWN

WEEK 8-9: POSTMODERNISM AND CONSUMER CULTURE: DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

WEEK 10-11: NATIONALISMS AND TRANSNATIONALISMS: TROPIC OF ORANGE

WEEK 11-12: ECOCRITICISM IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES

WEEK 13: AMERICAN LITERATURE AFTER EVERTHING

WEEK 14-15: CLASS SYMPOSIUM

DAY-BY-DAY SCHEDULE

M	Aug. 31	FIRST DAY OF CLASS Henry Luce, “The American Century” [D2L]
W	Sep. 2	American Literature after the American Century Henry A. Giroux, “Public Intellectuals against the Neoliberal University” [Web] Michael Bérubé, “American Studies without Exceptions” [D2L]
M	Sep. 7	LABOR DAY HOLIDAY—NO CLASS
W	Sep. 9	Canons and Trigger Warnings Lolita, Foreword and Part One
M	Sep. 14	Lolita, Part Two (first half)
W	Sep. 16	Lolita (whole book including afterword)
M	Sep. 21	Jay Caspian King, “Trigger Warnings and the Novelist’s Mind” [newyorker.com] Malcolm Harris, “Western Canon, Meet Trigger Warning” [aljazeera.com] Ira Wells, “Forgetting Lolita: How Nabokov’s Victim Became an American Fantasy” [newrepublic.com] “A Portrait of the Young Girl: On the 60th Anniversary of Lolita” [Los Angeles Review of Books]
W	Sep. 23	Popular Culture(s) Fredric Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture”
M	Sep. 28	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (whole book)
W	Sep. 30	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (whole book) Susan Sontag, “The Imagination of Disaster” [D2L] Fredric Jameson, “Metacommentary” [D2L]
M	Oct. 5	Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978 film) Erika Nelson, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Gender and Sexuality in Four Film Adaptations” [D2L] Marty Roth, “Twice Two: The Fly and Invasion of the Body Snatchers” [D2L]
W	Oct. 7	Theories and Identities Octavia E. Butler, Dawn (first half)
M	Oct. 12	Octavia E. Butler, Dawn (second half)
W	Oct. 14	Octavia Butler, Adulthood Rites (excerpts) [D2L] Donna Haraway, “The Cyborg Manifesto” [D2L] Donna Haraway, Primate Visions [excerpt] [D2L]
M	Oct. 19	Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” [D2L]
W	Oct. 21	Postmodernism and Consumer Culture David Foster Wallace, “Octet” David Foster Wallace, “The Depressed Person”
M	Oct. 26	CONFERENCES—NO CLASS
W	Oct. 28	David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction” Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”
M	Nov. 2	Nationalism and Transnationalism Tropic of Orange (first half) FINAL PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE
W	Nov. 4	Tropic of Orange (second half)
M	Nov. 9	Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands [excerpts] [D2L] Junot Díaz, “Monstro” [D2L]
W	Nov. 11	Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (first half)
M	Nov. 16	We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (second half)
W	Nov. 18	Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History” [D2L] McKenzie Wark, “Critical Theory after the Anthropocene” [D2L]
M	Nov. 23	American Literature after Everything Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” [D2L] Giorgio Agamben, “What Is The Contemporary?” [D2L] Natalia Cecire, “Humanities Scholarship Is Incredibly Relevant, and That Makes People Sad” [Web]
W	Nov. 25	THANKSGIVING—NO CLASS
M	Nov. 30	Syllabus Workshop GROUP SYLLABUSES DUE
W	Dec. 2	Class Symposium (day one)
M	Dec. 7	Class Symposium (day two)
W	Dec. 9	Class Symposium (day three)
F	Dec. 18	FINAL PAPERS DUE BY 10 AM