Learning objectives
The course aims at providing students with a general knowledge of North-American literature (with a specific focus on the United States), as well as its contexts, with a special eye on the literary representations of space from the 17th century until now. The notions the students will learn will allow them to contextualize literary figures and texts in relation to a complex series of historical and cultural events. During the course they will acquire methodologies for the analysis and interpretation of specific literary texts. Students will learn to
• know the main authors, works, movements and aesthetic ideas from the 17th century until nowadays, as well as the different historical, political, cultural and artistic phenomena referring to these centuries;
• understand and analyze complex literary texts both in terms of their formal characteristics and their thematic and ideological contents;
• make informed and motivated judgments about literary and cultural phenomena, based on a careful decoding of textual evidence;
• formulate, communicate and discuss contents, analyses and judgments by using the linguistic register appropriate to the specific topic, that is to say, appropriate to the lexicon of literary studies;
• formulate and communicate content and analysis - in English - using a linguistic register appropriate to the subject, coinciding with the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
Writing America: North-American Literary Geographies
The course aims at presenting the students with an overview of the complex relationship between American literature and its geographical, social, historical, and cultural environment. Moving from the Puritans, through some key moments like the Independence and the Renaissance, to modern and contemporary times, the course will show how American literature in its different evolutions represents space in all its complexity. Texts will be analyzed in their formal and thematic features, as well as in the specific cultural, political, and philosophical views they vehiculate in relation to their cultural-spatial dimension. Themes will include: the Puritan wilderness, Jeffersonian Democracy, the Frontier Thesis, and literature and the urban space. Focusing on the relationship of man and space, students will also be guided through the history of American literature at large. Through an intertextual analysis, and with the help of some theoretical essays, the course will provide a comprehensive study in the evolution of the symbolical geographies presented by some fundamental works of American literature.
Full programme
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Bibliography
All the text will be provided on Elly
Critical and Theoretical Texts
Norton Anthology of American Literature (introductions to the different periods)
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (selection)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Robert T. Tally, Jr. “Geocriticism and Classic American Literature”
Literary Texts
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (selection)
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (selection)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Edgar Allan Poe, The Man of the Crowd
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (selection)
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
Jack London, To Build a Fire
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (selection)
Ernest Hemingway, The Big Two-Hearted River
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (selection)
Teaching methods
The course consists of 15 classes taught in English, each dedicated to a specific work. Classes will be uploaded on Elly
Assessment methods and criteria
The assessment of knowledge and skills occurs by means of an oral examination. During the oral exam, the student is asked to answer questions in English relating to the contents of the course, individual readings and any further studies independently carried out.
The knowledge and skills to be assessed during the oral examination are:
• an oral proficiency at an advanced level (i.e. the successful acquisition of the appropriate register and the specific language of literary studies) and oral proficiency in English corresponding to B2 level;
• knowledge of texts, authors, and ideological contexts and formal issues of the literary periods in question;
• an appropriate level in the ability to expand autonomously on certain contents. The oral examination is designed to assess knowledge, the ability for independent and original reworking of such knowledge, as well as the ability to make connections, comparisons and contrasts.
A fail is determined by the lack, demonstrated by students during the oral examination, of understanding of the minimum and essential contents of the course, the inability to express themselves adequately on the subject in English at B2 level, the lack of autonomous preparation, and the inability to solve problems related to information retrieval and the decoding of texts. A pass (18-23/30) is awarded to those students who show that they have learned the minimum and essential contents of the course, that they have acquired an ability to discuss literary topics appropriately in English, with a sufficient competence in relation to the characteristics of the B2 level, that they have achieved a sufficient degree of self-preparation and a sufficient capacity of textual analysis. Middle-range scores (24-27/30) are assigned to the student who produces evidence of a more than sufficient level (24-25/30) or a good level (26-27/30) in the evaluation indicators listed above. Higher scores (from 28/30 to 30/30 cum laude) are awarded on the basis of the student’s demonstration of a very good or excellent level in the evaluation indicators listed above
Other information
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