This course examines a selection of American novels, novellas and short stories that were published during what is now sometimes referred to as, the 'American Century'. In investigating a selection of twentieth-century US texts, we will analyse and reflect on the connections between authors' experimentations and/or narrative innovations, their use of more traditional forms and genres and their exploration of modern and postmodern American themes. Topics to be explored include the role of writing/literature in the age of multi- and digital media; racial/ multicultural/"post"racial identities; the role of the city, the suburbs and other American regions; utopian and dystopian visions of the future; literature and form/genre.    The course will conclude with our exploration of the contemporary cable television drama, Mad Men, a series that can be thought of as thematising post 9/11 preoccupations with the idea that America has entered a new age of decline.

By the end of this course, students should be able to

1. identify key elements of twentieth-century American fiction and evaluate the similarities and differences between different narrative forms

2. think, write and argue about the importance of literary, generic,  intellectual and populist approaches to understanding everyday life in the context of the United States as a post-industrial or technologically advanced society. 

3. develop a critical stance on the role that narrative plays in imagining and responding to representations of everyday life. 

Essay of 1,500 words (30%) [LO 1, 2]

Essay of 2,500 words (50%) [LO 1, 2, 3]

Assessed tutorial presentation (20%) [LO 1, 2, 3]

One 1.5-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial per week. Approx 7.5 hours reading/writing time per week.

Any two English courses.

N/A

Gertrude Stein, Three Lives

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Donna Tartt, A Secret History 

Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

Mad Men (AMC, Series One)