American Studies (literature modules) Resits 2014-15
Resit titles and papers
Am Lit to 1890 I
2000 wds
YEAR 1
Answer ONE of the following questions in a well-written essay of 2,000 words. Be sure to follow
the guidelines for academic writing by citing your sources and including a bibliography. Please
follow MLA citation style. Take the time to revise and edit your essay carefully to ensure that it
is coherent, well-organised, and free of grammatical and typographical errors.
1.
How does Anne Bradstreet explore womanhood in her poetry? What difficulties
did she face as a Puritan woman poet? Discuss in terms of at least two of
Bradstreet’s poems we have read for the class. You might also relate her writing to
that of other early American women writers covered in the course.
2.
How are members of the indigenous population of North America represented in
the work of at least two of the following writers: Roger Williams, Mary Rowlandson,
Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, or Philip Freneau? You might consider how
notions of the landscape, resources, or wilderness or ideas of the frontier shape
these representations, how women in particular are represented, or how violence
and the decimation of native cultures resulted from these representations. Be
specific in your response, and pay detailed attention to language (persistent uses of
imagery, metaphors, or names).
3.
What is the role of reading, writing, and the printing in Benjamin Franklin’s project
of self-improvement, as he describes in his Autobiography?
4.
What is ‘common’ about Thomas Paine’s Common Sense? That is, how does he
make his argument, for whom is his argument made, and what does it entail? You
might, for example, discuss how Paine’s critiques the British monarchy.
This paper is an exercise in close reading and therefore close writing. This means that you will
have to pay close, detailed attention to the text, choosing carefully your quotations and making
sure that each supports your argument. That is, you will need to develop a thesis statement on
the basis of your chosen topic. Your thesis statement should be clearly defined and welldeveloped throughout, using textual evidence properly. You can cite any material we have
covered in class, but only if it supports a specific point you are making. That is, reference to
secondary works we have consulted in class is welcome, though the focus of your paper is the
close reading of a particular primary text(s).
Am Lit to 1890 II
2000 wds
Answer ONE of the following questions in a well-written essay of 2,000 words. Be sure to follow
the guidelines for academic writing by citing your sources and including a bibliography. Take the
time to revise and edit your essay carefully to ensure that it is coherent, well-organised, and free
of grammatical and typographical errors.
1.
How does Nathaniel Hawthorne depict Puritan culture or religion in The Scarlet
Letter? As this is a large topic, you might focus your essay to how Hawthorne
represents Puritan notions of the wilderness, violence, science or medicine, love,
women, government, sin, the body, etc. How does Hawthorne animate the Puritan
past through his use of the form of ‘Romance’?
2.
What is the role of the poet for Emerson? As this is a big question, you will have to
narrow it down to a particular approach or subtheme drawing on the works we have
read for the module. Some possible subthemes could be the relationship between
poetry and nature, thinking, religion, etc., or Emerson’s idea of an ‘American’ poet.
3.
In Whitman’s poem ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’, we encounter a series of striking,
and sometimes profoundly different, articulations of what could be called the
dynamic of the ‘one and the many’. Explore how this dynamic unfolds in the poem
in different guises, such as the dynamic of the individual and the community, the
person and the crowd, the self and society, nature and the individual. How does
Whitman’s poetic form relate to this dynamic?
4.
In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, and Mark
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, race and racism are of central
importance. Choose TWO of these texts to write a focused essay that compares
and contrasts how race or racism function in them. You might want to narrow your
topic to the relationship between race and language (writing and speaking), race and
emancipation/personal freedom, race and violence, or race and religion. How are
these writers, through their depictions of race, also critiquing American society?
This paper is an exercise in close reading and therefore close writing. This means that you will
have to pay close, detailed attention to the text, choosing carefully your quotations and making
sure that each supports your argument. That is, you will need to develop a thesis statement on
the basis of your chosen topic. Your thesis statement should be clearly defined and welldeveloped throughout, using textual evidence properly. You can cite any material we have
covered in class, but only if it supports a specific point you are making. (All citations should
follow MLA Style). Papers should be typed and double-spaced, using 12pt font and 1”margins.
Do not exceed the number of words (2000) for the assignment.
American Humour
2000 wds
Choose from one of the following three titles:
How might the figure of the Trickster help us understand the work of at least two twentieth
century American comedians?
Does female comedy differ significantly to comedy produced by males? If so, how, and why?
What kinds of humour have the events of September 11th 2001 led to? Use at least two
examples.
YEAR 2
Am Lit Since 1890 I
3500 wds
Candidates must answer one essay question. Candidates must write about TWO
writers studied on the course in their answer.
1. “All great art is born of the metropolis.” (Ezra Pound). Do the writings of this
period prove or disprove this claim?
2. “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel
bad after.” (Ernest Hemingway). What kind of morality emerges from the writing of
this period?
3. Examine how writers in this period explored the emergence of America as a world
cultural and political power.
4. “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common
sense.” (Gertrude Stein). What role does the rapid growth of ‘information’ play in
writing of this period?
5. Which works of the period do you consider to be ‘failed’ experiments, and why?
6. “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very
bottom of hardships.” (W.E.B. Dubois). What do you find interesting or compelling
about the way writers of this period represent marginal social or racial identity?
Pulp Culture
3500 wds
Either:
In what ways has the popular fiction studied on the module ‘Pulp Culture’ engaged with a
‘feminist imaginary’?
Or:
Discuss the assertion that readers create meaning in the popular text. Refer to at least three
works studied on ‘Pulp Culture’.
Am Lit Since 1890 II
3500 wds
Answer ONE question.
Candidates must write about TWO writers studied on the course in their answer
1. “I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.” (Dashiel
Hamnet) Which writer(s) of this period have exerted a positive or negative influence on their
contemporaries or successors?
2. Examine how American writers in this period have explored the creative possibilities of
economic prosperity.
3. Which writers of this period have made the most interesting use of experimental form?
4. 'This is not a story to pass on' (Toni Morrison, Beloved). Examine how two writers in the
period represent the relatiionship between narrative form and memory in their work.
FINAL YEAR
Recent American Writing
5000 wds
Choose one from the following four titles:
Discuss the representation of violence in one or more texts from the module.
Feminism as a discourse has developed in myriad ways since the 1980s. Use at least two texts
from the module to show how female writers have dealt with feminist issues in contrasting
ways.
A critique of capitalism provides the basis for a number of the texts on the module. Use at
least two texts to show the different ways in which this is achieved.
‘All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots,
lovers’ plots, narrative plots' (Don Delillo, White Noise). Discuss the ways two writers studied
on this module interrogate this notion of narrative plotting in their work.
Immigrant America
6000 wds
Student chooses own title, to be agreed with tutor.