31055 - LETTERATURE ANGLO-AMERICANE 1

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

Al termine del corso lo studente conosce le linee generali della storia della letteratura, è in grado di leggere, comprendere e tradurre testi in lingua ed è avviato all'uso dei metodi e degli strumenti di base di tipo analitico, per interpretare le opere dei principali autori, contestualizzandoli nella cultura e nel periodo storico di riferimento.

Contenuti

THE LITERARY IDENTITY OF NORTH-AMERICA: UNITED STATES & CANADA (PERIOD: XVII-XIX CENTURIES).

The course is an introduction to the literature of North America (USA and Canada) written in English, with a special focus on identity issues and the perception of a "national" literature. Classic and funding texts will be cross read to outline the symbolic and mythological patterns that have moulded the US and Canadian national realities through time. Literature is investigated through a constant dialogue with other arts, including media, cinema, photography and the visual arts. The concepts of identity, memory, community, inner/outer landscape will constitute the thematic paradigms to approach the evolving mentalities underpinning the evolution of complex identity processes in the so-called New World.

These are some of the topics that we will address in class:

• Discovering / Conquering / Inventing “America”
• Puritan America
• American Pioneers
• Afro-Americans (The Passage)
• American Transcendentalism
• The Gilded Age
• Literary Impressionism
• New Realism (USA)
• Travelogues (Canada)
• Melting Pot & Multiculturalism

Please Note: This course is organized as part of the sustainability phase of the European Project “PERFORMIGRATIONS: People Are the Territory” (www.performigratios.eu ), in the frame of the research project “WeTell: Storytelling and Civic Awareness” (https://site.unibo.it/wetell/en ) and in collaboration with the literary portal www.canadausa.net. The main goal is to encourage a new global mentality, deeply rooted in the humanities, so to reorient today geopolitics and create a happier and more just world. No knowledge is useful if it leads to satisfy only a few people’s urgent needs, be that material or emotional; knowledge is useful if it induces us to question our communal existence, helping us to learn how to act upon our community in responsible ways, in turn leading to a truly shared happiness.

Important: EVERYBODY IS WELCOME AND DIVERSITY (IN ALL ITS FORMS) IS WELCOME TOO.

This course will feature a series of guest scholars and professionals to encourage the dialogue between literature and civic society so to widen our knowledge of learning and training opportunities available nationally or internationally. The detailed schedule will be available when classes start.

Testi/Bibliografia

IMPORTANT: all students must know the literary history of the related time (Final Exam: Test). The following readings are therefore mandatory and are different for UNIBO students and ERASMUS / INTERNATIONAL students:

UNIBO STUDENTS

1) Guido Fink et al, Storia della letteratura americana, Firenze: Sansoni, 1991 (Solo la parte: “Dalle origini al 1915”)

2) Gebbia Alessandro, “La letteratura Anglocanadese”, in Lombardo A. (a cura di) Le Orme di Prospero. Le Nuove letterature di lingua inglese: Africa, Carabi, Canada, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1995, pp. 141-219; Capone Giovanna, Canada. Il villaggio della terra, Bologna, Patron (chapters 1,2,3).

ERASMUS/INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

From The Columbia Literary History of the United States, New York: Columbia U.P., 1988:

• Part 1, Chapters I, III
• Part 2, Chapters II, III, IV
• Part 3, Chapter IV

To complete the preparation for the final exam (Essay), students are asked to choose a mandatory number of volumes from the here below lists A, B, C.

PLEASE NOTE: students can update/customise the reading lists here below provided they discuss all changes with the course director PRIOR the exam. The minimum required number of texts cannot be changed.

A) Two volumes chosen among the following primary sources (USA):

Hector St.John de Crèvecoeur, “What is an American” da Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” da The Sketch Book (1819-20)

Fenimore Cooper James, The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

Thoreau Henry D., Walden; or Life in the Woods, (1854)

Beecher Stowe Harriet, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Twain Mark, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

Crane Stephen, The Red Badge of Courage, (1894)

London Jack, Martin Eden, (1909)

B) Two volumes chosen among the following primary sources (Canada):

Traill, C.P., The Backwoods of Canada, (1836)

Jameson Anna, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, (1838)

Moodie Susanna, Roughing it in the Bush, (1852)

Carr Emily, Klee Wyck (1941); The Book of Small (1942); The House of All Sorts (1944), Growing Pains (1946)

Atwood Margaret, The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970)

C) At least one essay chosen among the following secondary sources:

Buonomo Leonardo, “Dichiarazioni di indipendenza: i grandi classici dell’Ottocento”, in Iuli C. e Loreto P. (a cura di), La letteratura degli Stati Uniti, Roma, Carocci, 2017, pp. 13-47.

Calvino, Italo. ”Mark Twain, L’uomo che corruppe Hadleyburg”, in Perchè leggere i classici, Milano, Mondatori, 1991, pp. 196-202

Cusmano, Domenic. “Whose Culture is it anyway? Towards a redefinition of Canadian Culture”, in Il Canada e le Culture della Globalizzazione, cit., pp.551-556

Di Loreto, Sonia. “La slave narratives e l’abolizionismo atlantico, in Iuli C. e Loreto P. (a cura di), La letteratura degli Stati Uniti, Roma, Carocci, 2017, pp. 69 – 89.

Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom, Norton Paperback, 1999

Fortunati, Vita. “Word and Image in the Works of Emily Carr”, New Englishes, pp. 3-20

Gorjup, Branko. “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Representation of Space in Canadian Writing”, in Il Canada e le Culture della Globalizzazione, cit. pp. 765-784

Granville, Ganter. “Battles of Rhetoric: Oratory and Identity in Cooper's Last of the Mohicans”, [©1997 by James Fenimore Cooper Society] Hancuff, Richard. “Without a Cross: Writing the Nation in The Last of the Mohicans” [©1999, James Fenimore Cooper Society and the College at Oneonta ]

Leonardi, Nicoletta. Il paesaggio americano dell’ottocento. Pittori, fotografi e pubblico, Roma, Donzelli Editore 2003.

Loreto, Paola. “La poesia dell’Ottocento e la retorica delle emozioni”, in Iuli C. e Loreto P. (a cura di), La letteratura degli Stati Uniti, Roma, Carocci, 2017, pp. 49-68

Marx, Leo. "Walden as Transcendental Pastoral." Emerson Society Quarterly, in Ruland, Richard, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Walden: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 101-112

Mariani, Giorgio. “La poesia della guerra civile: Walt Whitman, Herman Melville ed Emily Dickinson, in Iuli C. e Loreto P. (a cura di), La letteratura degli Stati Uniti, Roma, Carocci, 2017, pp. 91-116

Monticelli, Rita. “Haunting Otherness: Intertextuality in 19^th Century Travel Literature on Canada”, in Il Canada e le Culture della Globalizzazione, cit., pp. 317-330

Nardi, Paola. “Donne eccezionali: la narrativa femminile fra Ottocento e Novecento”, in Iuli C. e Loreto P. (a cura di), La letteratura degli Stati Uniti, Roma, Carocci, 2017, pp. 117-140. Portelli, Alessandro. “La valle, lo spettro, l’accumulazione”, in Portelli A., Il re nascosto. Saggio su Washington Irving, Roma, Bulzoni, 1979

Portelli, Alessandro. Canoni americani. Oralità, letteratura, cinema, musica, Roma, Donzelli Editore, 2004.

Varrà, Emilio. “Huckleberry Finn”, in Id., La zattera dell’immaginario. Mito simbolo e racconto in Mark Twain, Bologna, Il Ponte Vecchio, pp. 83-130

Woodlief, Ann M. “Negotiating Nature / Wilderness; Crèvecoeur and American Identity in Letters From an American Farmer”

IMPORTANT : Additional essays and volumes will be discussed in class. Students who do not attend class are strongly invited to meet the course director before taking the final exam.

 

Metodi didattici

Students’ active participations is strongly encouraged. Therefore, in addition to the lecture format, group work will be scheduled to create a vibrant and interactive educational environment.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

The FINAL EXAM consists of:

A) Final written test (to test the student’s knowledge of the literary history of the period XVII-XIX).

B) Short essay (3000-3500 words), in English or in Italian (to probe the student’s capability to analyze literary texts and question them in relation to the complex and heterogeneous North American realities).

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Traditional and Multimedia tools

Link ad altre eventuali informazioni

https://site.unibo.it/wetell/en

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Elena Lamberti