Introduces twentieth-century literature and contemporary literature, focusing on representative works that illustrate literary and intellectual developments since 1900.
This course is designed to provide students with an entry point into major literary and intellectual concerns of twentieth-century literature. While focusing on the assigned texts, we will pay particular attention to the ways literature intersects with modern/postmodern social, political, and aesthetic phenomena. In addition to reading five novels, students will be required to read poems, short stories, literary criticism, and theoretical essays complied in a course pack. Other assignments include weekly in-class writings, four response papers (2-3 pages), group presentations, and a final research paper (5-7 pages). Primary texts include Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), E.M. Forster's A Passage to India (1924), Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1959), Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (1972), and Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (1990).
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Class assignments and grading