This course, conducted in English, will introduce the students to the period of American writing that saw an arrival of new form and new content in the 1920s and a new focus on the socially indigenous in the 1930s. Basic orientation in the various streams of postwar writing, from the confessional mainstream novel through the Beats to experimental prose and postmodern writing. The diversity of styles in this period corresponds to the increasingly complex picture of the American society and reflects its complexity.
Aim of the course
Last update: Mgr. Jiřina Tomečková (26.09.2023)
To acquire basic idea about the US literary scene during the first and second half of the 20th century.
Course completion requirements
Last update: Bc. Sára Lochmanová (05.10.2023)
Grading is based on the Dean's Measure no. 20/2019: https://fsv.cuni.cz/deans-measure-no-20/2019
The Columbia History of the American Novel Richard Ruland, Malcolm Bradbury: From Puritanism to Postmodernism Oxford Companion to American Literature Frederick Karl: American Fictions
Teaching methods
Last update: Bc. Sára Lochmanová (03.10.2023)
Discussion of the given writer's life and work, followed by close reading and discussion of one of his or her texts (short story, sample of a novel, a poem).
This seminar will be taught in presence in Jinonice.
Requirements to the exam
Last update: Mgr. Jiřina Tomečková (26.09.2023)
Knowledge of key facts about the writer's life and work and his position in the given literary period. Active participation in discussions and regular attendance of the course.
Grading is based on the Dean's Measure no. 20/2019: https://fsv.cuni.cz/deans-measure-no-20/2019
91% and more => A
81-90% => B
71-80% => C
61-70% => D
51-60% => E
0-50% => F
Syllabus - Czech
Last update: Mgr. Jiřina Tomečková (26.09.2023)
Introduction Ernest Hemingway Scott Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos William Faulkner Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Harlem Renaissance John Steinbeck Erskine Caldwell and Nathaniel West E. E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams Eugene O\'Neil -----------------------summer term--------- Introduction Saul Bellow Philip Roth Vladimir Nabokov Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlingetti Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Richard Brautigan John Updike William Styron Joyce Carol Oates, Tony Morrison, Ann Tyler Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut John Irving Tom Robbins
