Undergraduate Course: The Contemporary American Novel (LLLG07046)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | THIS IS A FOR-CREDIT COURSE OFFERED BY THE OFFICE OF LIFELONG LEARNING (OLL); ONLY STUDENTS REGISTERED WITH OLL SHOULD BE ENROLLED.
The course defines the contemporary as the heir of the emancipation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s in the US where the civil rights movement, second wave feminism, and minority and immigrant rights have radically changed the American cultural landscape turning it into a de-centred pluralist configuration marked by struggles for radical democracy and equality. The course explores the varied landscape of contemporary American fiction, seeking to showcase representative works and achieve a balance across the diverse range of voices, ethnicities and cultural positions. The novels we study will be an opportunity to meet important American writers of today like Morrison, Pynchon, or Doctorow, study their ideas and the importance of their work to the re-definition of America.
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| Course description |
Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Week 3 E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime (1975)
Week 4 Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon (1977)
Week 5 Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian (1985)
Week 6 Maxine Hong Kingston: Tripmaster Monkey (1989)
Week 7 Annie Proulx: Postcards (1992)
Week 8 William Gaddis Agape: Agape (1998)
Week 9 Phillip Roth: The Plot against America (2004)
Week 10 Louise Erdrich: The Round House (2012)
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 16 |
| Course Start |
Lifelong Learning - Session 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
98 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One 2000 word essay submitted after the course finishes, worth 100% of the total course mark. |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
* understand the textual strategies of contemporary fiction;
* assess the intellectual interactions between American novelists and the history and politics of the US;
* form an awareness of the literary innovations in the fiction of the past decades.
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Reading List
Essential
Doctorow, E.L., 2006. Ragtime. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Erdrich, L., 2013. The Round House. New York: Harper Perennial.
Gaddis, W., 2003. Agape, Agape. New York: Atlantic Books.
Hong Kingston, Maxine 1990. Tripmaster Monkey. London: Vintage.
McCarthy, C., 2010. Blood Meridian. New York: Picador.
Morrison, Toni 1998. Song of Solomon. London: Vintage.
Proulx, A., 2009. Postcards. New York: Fourth Estate.
Pynchon, Thomas 1996. The Crying of Lot 49. London: Vintage Classics.
Roth, Philip 2005. The Plot against America. London: Vintage.
Recommended
Bickley, Pamela 2008. Contemporary Fiction. The Novel Since 1990. Cambridge: CUP. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Rachael King
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Diane Mcmillan
Tel: (0131 6)50 6912
Email: |
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