AMERICAN LITERATURE AN OVERVIEW Department of English Dr

AMERICAN LITERATURE: AN OVERVIEW Department of English Dr Dima Abduljababr

Text Books The Norton Anthology of American Literature Adventures in American Literature

Goals and Objectives By the end of this course, students of American Literature will be able to ◦ Define basic philosophies and influential movements and writers of American literature. ◦ Recognize social and cultural backgrounds of the different ages and movement in American literature. ◦ Interpret and appraise literary texts written by American writers. ◦ Produce a critical essay and answers that demonstrate their knowledge of American literary themes.

Class Procedure Our class does basically rely on ◦ Discussion. ◦ Brainstorming and interaction. ◦ Students’ participation. ◦ Slide-show presentation. ◦ Reading texts from different ages and literary genres and by different writers. ◦ Logical thinking. ◦ Implementation of certain electronic activities via Blackboard.

You are expected to ◦ Pre-read the texts, and read about texts and writers, before you come to class. ◦ Take notes or keep a journal (paper or electronic). ◦ Be in class on time. ◦ Participate in class/online discussion. ◦ Activate and start using your UQU email. ◦ Follow up our news on Blackboard with or without a notice from your teacher. ◦ Think about a unique topic for your term-essay. ◦ Use the slideshow presentation as a secondary reference only and rely, mainly, on the book for a complete understanding of what we discuss in class.

Course Topics We will survey American Literature from 1600 to 2000, covering the following in chronological order ◦ The Beginnings of the American Tradition (1600 - 1760). ◦ The Revolutionary Period (1760 -1800). ◦ First Harvest and the Flowering of New England (1840 -1860). ◦ The Civil War (1860 -1890). ◦ Realism and Naturalism (1890 -1914). ◦ Literature in Modern American.

The Beginnings of the American Tradition (1600 1760). Some of themes that we will tackle in class are ◦ Immigration ◦ Colonialism. ◦ Religious war and fanaticism ◦ Puritanism ◦ Native people

The Revolutionary Period (1760 -1800). We will tackle some of the following themes ◦ Revolution and independence ◦ National identity: The United States of America. ◦ Science and logic vs. religion

First Harvest and the Flowering of New England (1840 -1860). Following are some themes covered during this period: ◦ Birth of the American short story. ◦ Romanticism. ◦ Transcendentalism and antitranscendentalism. ◦ The American novel.

The Civil War (1860 -1890). In this part, we will cover the following themes ◦ War amongst brothers. ◦ North and South in the USA. ◦ Slavery and abolitionism. ◦ Slaves narratives.

Realism and Naturalism (18901914). Following are some concepts that we will discuss Science vs. religion. ◦ Darwinism. ◦ Naturalism. ◦ The Blind forces. ◦ “Survival of the fittest”

Literature in Modern American. We will cover the following ◦ The Great War and World War II. ◦ Disintegration. ◦ The American Dream. ◦ Discrimination. ◦ Birth of the American Drama. ◦ Avant Garde and Modernism.

ENJOY