| Course Type | Elective Course |
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| Course Level | Master's Degree Without Thesis |
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| Year of Study | - |
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| Semester | - |
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| ECTS | 10 |
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| Name of Lecturer(s) |
- |
| Learning Outcomes |
At the end of this course, the students;
- will be able to discuss how American fiction between the two World Wars responded not only to the preoccupations of modernist American thought (such as the alienation of the individual from the world of commercial culture) but also to the immense political and social changes that took place in this period,
- will be able to discuss how American fiction in this period sought to question conventional representations of reality through experimentation in narrative techniques,
- will be able to discuss how American fiction after World War II problematized dominant political and cultural discourses mainly through playful irony and black humor, thus moving towards postmodern American fiction,
- will be able to identify postmodern writing techniques in American fiction such as metafiction, intertextuality and parody.
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| Mode of Delivery | Face to face |
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| Prerequisites | No |
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| Recommended Optional Programme Components | None |
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| Course Description | This course will trace the development of 20th century American fiction from Modernism to Postmodernism. The aim of the course is to underline the similarities and differences between these two movements. Discussion on major authors will be supplemented by a selection of theoretical and critical essays. |
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| Course Contents |
| WEEK |
TOPICS |
|
1st Week |
Introduction |
|
2nd Week |
Existentialism and Nihilism; ?An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment??, Immanuel Kant.; From "Existentialism" Jean-Paul Sartre in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology by Lawrence E. Cahoone. pg 259-265 |
|
3rd Week |
"The Madman", Friedrich Nietzsche in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology by Lawrence E. Cahoone. pg 102-104.; Saul Bellow, Seize the Day |
|
4th Week |
Saul Bellow, Seize the Day; J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey |
|
5th Week |
J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey, cont. |
|
6th Week |
The Southern Gothic and Alienation in Modern Times; Flannery O?Connor, ?Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction?; ?Good Country People?; William Van O?Connor, ?The Grotesque: An American Genre?; Eudora Welty, ?Clytie?; William Faulkner, ?A Rose for Emily? |
|
7th Week |
Postmodern Aesthetics; ?Literature of Exhaustion?, John Barth; ?Postmodernism?, Linda Hutcheon, ?The Postmodern?, Andrew Bennett and Nicolas Royle; ?Postmodernism and Literature? by Barry Lewis in The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism; ?Chinese Box Worlds?, Brian McHale in Postmodernist Fiction |
|
8th Week |
Metafiction; ?Postmodernism and Consumer Society?, Fredric Jameson; ?The Novelist at the Crossroads?, David Lodge; John Barth, ?Lost in the Funhouse? ; Ursula K. Le Guin, ?Schrödinger?s Cat? |
|
9th Week |
Metafiction Cont.; ?What is metafiction and why are they saying such awful things about it??; ?Literary Self-Consciousness: developments?, Patricia Waugh. ; Paul Auster, Ghosts |
|
10th Week |
Revisiting Grand Narratives; ?Historiographic Metafiction: `The Pastime of Past Time??, Linda Hutcheon. ; ?The Politics of Parody?, Linda Hutcheon from The Politics of Postmodernism ; Tim O?Brien, ?How to Tell a True War Story? ; Judith Viorst, ?And then the Prince Knelt Down?; Jane Yolen, ?The Moon Ribbon? |
|
11th Week |
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five |
|
12th Week |
Revisiting Grand Narratives Cont.; ?Is nothing sacred?: Parody and the Postmodern?, Simon Dentith ; John Gardner, Grendel |
|
13th Week |
John Gardner, Grendel, cont. |
|
| Recommended or Required Reading | Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern American Novel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983.
Cusatis, John. Research Guide to American Literature: Postwar Literature 1945 1970. NY: Facts on File, 2010.
Dickstein, Morris. Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945 1970. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002.
Donald, Miles. The American Novel in the Twentieth Century. Totowa, NJ: Barnes, 1978.
Gold, Herbert. Fiction of the Fifties: A Decade of American Writing. New York: Doubleday, 1959.
Hendin, Josephine. A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture. New York: Blackwell, 2004.
Kershner, R. B. The Twentieth Century Novel: An Introduction. Boston: Bedford Books, 1971.
Podhoretz, Norman. Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After in American Writing. New York: Farrar Straus, 1964.
Schaub, Thomas. American Fiction in the Cold War. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 1991.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950 1970. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.
|
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| Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods |
- Lecture
- Discussion
- Presentation
- Other
|
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| Assessment Methods and Criteria |
|
Quantity |
Percentage (%) |
| Assignment |
1 |
30 |
| Presentation of Article |
2 |
10 |
| Other |
5 |
30 |
| Total(%) |
|
70 |
| Contribution of In-term Studies to Overall Grade(%) |
|
70 |
| Contribution of Final Examination to Overall Grade(%) |
|
30 |
| Total(%) |
|
100 |
|
| ECTS Allocated Based on Student Workload |
| Activities |
Quantity |
Duration (Hour) |
Total Workload (Hour) |
| Midterm exam |
|
|
|
| Preparation for Quiz |
|
|
|
| Individual or group work |
14 |
5 |
70 |
| Preparation for Final exam |
1 |
10 |
10 |
| Course hours |
14 |
3 |
42 |
| Preparation for Midterm exam |
|
|
|
| Laboratory (including preparation) |
|
|
|
| Final exam |
1 |
3 |
3 |
| Homework |
1 |
60 |
60 |
| Article Presentation |
2 |
25 |
50 |
| Weekly Articles and Resource Research |
14 |
5 |
70 |
| Total Work Load | 305 |
| Total Work Load / 30 (h) | 10.16 |
| ECTS Credit of the Course | 10 |
|
| Language of Instruction | English |
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| Work Placement(s) | No |
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