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Department of English and Media StudiesChrist University, BangaloreIII Semester JPE, CEP, PSE (JUNE –SEPTEMBER 2010)
Course Plan
Total No of Hours (approx) : 60
 Credits:
4Course: EST 331 American LiteraturesTeachers: Shobana Mathew, Arya Aiyappan, Anil Pinto and Bhavani.S
General Description:
The design/structure of the course supports an extensive study of  particular age/period in favour of a more conventional ‘representative writers’. The criticalfocus is on the period and not on representative-ness (of writers) and readable/teachable-ness(of texts).The course identifies ‘varieties’ as a crucial determinant of the nature and scope of theliterature in this selection, thus dismantling/dissolving conventional boundaries between theclassic and the popular. It incorporates a wide variety of literary and non-literary texts assimultaneously framing the cultural assumptions of the age/period.
Objectives
•
To introduce the students to the socio-political, religious and cultural aspects of NorthAmerica through literary texts
•
To enable the students realise the texts as products of historical, political andcultural contexts
Level of Knowledge:
Basic literary competence
Expected Learning Outcome:
Awareness of how the production, dissemination andreception of literary material in North America across different eras happened and thecontemporary debates, tensions and trends they stimulated.
Sl .NoTopicsTime
1.
Unit I
 
Colonial Period: to 1700
The origin of stories (Seneca)Context: Native American Oral Literatures – Oral Narrative, Oral Poetry
Christopher Columbus
 From Journal of the First Voyage to AmericaContext: Cultures in Contact: Voices from the Imperial Frontier  
 Eighteenth Century
 
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
 From The CrisisContext: Enlightenment Voices, Revolutionary Visions
Phillis Wheatly (1753-1784)
On being brought from Africa to America
June
 
On ImaginationContext: Contested Boundaries, National Visions: Writings on “Race”,“Identity”, and “Nation”
2.
Unit II
 
 Early Nineteenth Century: 1800-1865
 
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
The Purloined Letter Context: Myths, Tales, and Legends
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
What to the slave is Fourth of July?Context: Explorations of an “American” Self  
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
 Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National CemeteryContext: The Literature of Slavery and Abolition
Harriet E. Wilson (1808-1870)
 From Our Nig; or sketches from the life of a free black Context 
:
The Flowering of Narrative
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
 From Leaves of Grass – preface, song of myself 
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886
 ) I felt a funeral in my brainContext: The Emergence of American Poetic Voices
July3.
The Literature of an Expanding Nation: 1865-1912
 
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
 From Old Times on the Mississippi
Henry James
 From The preface to The American
Kate Chopin (1851-1904)
 Desiree’s Baby
Unit III
The Literature of Modernism: 1912-1940
 Prose
 
William Faulkner 
That Evening Sun
Ernest Hemingway
 Big Two-hearted River 
Zola Neal Hurston
The Gilded Six- bits 
 Poetry
 
Robert Frost
 Nothing gold can stay
Carl Sandburg
 Portrait of a Motorcar 
Wallace Stevens
 Not ideas about the thing but the thing in itself 
William Carlos Williams
The young housewife
August
 
The Literature of Postwar America: 1940-1973
 Poetry
Richard Wilbur 
The Writer 
Allen Ginsberg
 From Howl 
Frank O’ Hara
Why I am not a painter  
 Prose
Saul Bellow
 Looking for Mr.Green
 Norman Mailer 
 From Toward a Theatre of Ideas 
Contemporary Writing 
 
Tennesse Williams
– A Streetcar Named Desire
Rachel Carson
- Silent Springs (excerpts)
William Gibson
– Neuromancer (excerpts)
Jonathan Schell
- The Fate of the Earth (excerpts)
September Teaching MethodsThe classes will have lectures and student presentations. The lectures may draw upon visualmaterial. Lectures will locate the texts in their respective historical times while criticallyreflecting on them.CIA IPortion for the Mid-semester exam: Unit I and II.Question paper pattern: Section A: 4x5 marks=20 marks ( About 150 words)Section B: 3x10 marks=30 marks ( About 350 words)CIA IIWill be announced by the last week of June. It will have to be submitted by 15
 
July.CIA IIIWill be announced by the third week of August. It will have to be submitted by 5 September.End- semester Portion for the exam: Unit I, II, III and IVQuestion paper pattern: Section A: 4x15 marks=60 marks ( About 300words)Section B: 2x20 marks=40 marks ( About 500 words)Guidelines for Submission in case of written assignments:
•
The written assignment should be based on your individual research where applicable.The typed assignment should adhere to the following specifications: A4 size paper, 12font size, 11/2 line space, font: Times New Roman,
Book Antiqua,
or 
Garamond, printedon both the sides of the paper.
•
Assignment details - your name, reg. no, class, semester, assignment code, name of the College, name of the teacher in-charge and date of submission- should be mentionedon the top right-hand side of the first page.
Do not use a cover page.
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