18408 - English Literature II (Second Language)

Course contents

The course (first semester) looks at the work of different twentieth-century writers from the United States and England and focuses on the interrelation of personal histories, voices, and identities in works dealing with the issues of conflict, war, trauma, and violence. Using different genres (poetry, fiction, essay, cartoons, film), each artist finds a voice and a way to say something previously unexpressed or not listened to. The course will attempt to find ways to read for and listen to that voice, in order not to erase the experiences and the identities expressed in the texts.

Readings/Bibliography

Required reading:

British and American Literature Reader.

Hemingway, Ernest. In Our Time (1925). New York: Scribner, 1996.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Penguin, 1990.

Spiegelman, Art. MAUS. 2 vols. London: Penguin, 1998. (or any other edition).

Films:

11' 09'' 01 Dir. Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Mira Nair et al. 2002. (selected episodes)

The Secret Life of Words. Dir. Isabel Coixet (2005)

Recommended reading:

Ezrahi, Sidra DeKoven. By Words Alone. The Holocaust in Literature. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1980.

Kaplan, E. Ann. Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2005.

La Capra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.

Tal, Kalì. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989.

Teaching methods

Attendance and participation are highly encouraged. Some initial lectures will be followed by class discussion. You are required to read the assigned readings in advance.

Students are required to enroll in the course on the e-learning site.

Teaching tools

Photocopies and material available on the e-learning site.

Links to further information

http://moodle.sslmit.unibo.it/

Office hours

See the website of Raffaella Baccolini