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COURSE CODE: AN 33000BA03 Fall 2011
Course Designation: AMERICAN LITERATURE 4
Course Title: THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN POSTWAR AMERICAN
LITERATURE
Time & Place: Fri 10. 00 - 11. 40, Rm 204, GÖCS Bldg.
Instructor: Lenke Németh
nemeth.lenke@arts.unideb.hu
Office Hours: Wed 11.00 - 12.00, Rm
118, Mbl. Tel.: 52 512 900/22069. Fri
14.00 - 15. 00, GÖCS Bldg.
SYLLABUS
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to study a representative sample of post-WW II American prose
works that addresses, among others, a recurrent, archetypal theme in American literature,
the quest for identity. The course aims to review certain historical, social, and cultural
factors that account for the pervasiveness of this theme in the corpus of American
literature, yet our main concern will be to explore the theoretical, intellectual, and literary
aspects of the representations of identity in a wide range of works. We will investigate
why the various conceptions of identity, ethnic, racial, gender, national, and cultural have
acquired increasing salience in the literature of the given period and will discuss how the
notion of an integral and unified identity changes as reflected in the novels and short
stories chosen for study.
Authors selected for the course include male writers: Jewish American Saul Bellow
(1915-2005) and Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), African American Ralph Ellison
(1914-1994) and Ernest J. Gaines (1933-); as well as female writers such as (white)
American Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), African American Toni Morrison (1931-), Indianborn American Bharati Mukherjee (1940-), and Chicana Sandra Cisneros (1955-).
REQUIREMENTS
Participation in class discussions. To facilitate active participation in discussions you are
expected to come prepared to the sessions and raise one question pertaining to the literary
work on the agenda and one question pertaining to the theoretical study assigned.
Presentation: in a max. 10-minute oral presentation students are required to highlight the
significance of a selected text/author or discuss main points treated in a critical study
related to the work(s) on the agenda. The topics will be assigned in class.
Response paper: at the beginning of each class students are required to hand in a one-
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page response paper (printed) that reflects on the main points of the reading assigned.
Mid-term paper: will check your familiarity with the material read and discussed up to
that time.
Essay: a 7-page analytical paper that studies one of the texts (or several) the seminar
covers.
Format: typed in Times New Roman, 12 pt, 2,5 cm margins, double spaced, full and
correct citation, alphabetical bibliography (consult MLA), fastened, student’s name on
each page.
 Due no later than midnight, December 11
 No extensions will be granted on written work, except in cases of documented
misadventure or illness.
Essays should be submitted in a printed version or can be sent electronically to the
instructor.
ASSESSMENT
presentation: 10%
participation: 10%
response paper: 20%
midterm paper: 30%
take-home paper: 30%
Required Texts
Novels: any edition will do. Short stories are included in AN 306 course packet. Critical
studies marked with (E) will be provided electronically, the ones with (print) can be
found in a file in the Institute Library (Rm 101), while the rest are available on electronic
databases (JSTOR and Project Muse).
COURSE SCHEDULE
(1)
Orientation
(2)
Saul Bellow, Seize the Day (1956)
(3)
Bernard Malamud, "The Magic Barrel," "The Jewbird"
(4)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
Prologue, Chapters 1-14
(5)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
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Chapters 15-25, Epilogue
(6)
Joyce Carol Oates, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1970), “How I
Contemplated the World?” (1969)
(8)
Midterm paper
(9)
Consultation Week
(9)
Ernest J. Gaines, “The Sky is Grey” (1968)
(10)
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977) , Chapters 1-7
(11)
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977), Chapters 8-15
(12)
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1984),
(13)
Toni Morrison, “Recitatif” (1983)
Bharati Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story” (1988)
(14) Closing
A Short List of Suggested Secondary Sources
Abádi-Nagy Zoltán. Válság és komikum: A hatvanas évek amerikai regénye. Budapest:
Magvető, 1982.
---. Az amerikai minimalista próza. Budapest: Argumentum, 1994.
---. Mai amerikai regénykalauz, 1970-1990. Budapest: Intera, 1995.
Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. 7: Prose
Writing, 1940-1990 and vol. 8. Poetry and Criticism, 1940-1995. Ed. Cyrus R. K.
Patell. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Bigsby, Christopher. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture. Cambridge:
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CUP, 2006.
Bloom, Harold. Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. New York: Infobase, 2010.
Bollobás, Enikő. Az amerikai irodalom története. Budapest: Osiris, 2005.
Bradbury, Malcolm, and Richard Ruland. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Brown, Susan Windisch. Contemporary Novelists. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
Cheyfitz, Eric, ed. The Columbia Guide to American Indian Literatures of the United
States Since 1945. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.
Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York:
Columbia UP, 1988.
---. Columbia History of the American Novel. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.
Fellner, Astrid. Articulating Selves: Contemporary Chicana Self-Representation. Wien:
Braumüller, 2002.
Ford, Boris, ed. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature. Vol. 9. American
Literature. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Gray, Richard. American Poetry of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman, 1990.
---. A History of American Literature. London: Blackwell, 2004.
Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996.
Hassan, Ihab. Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1961.
---. Contemporary American Literature, 1945-1972: An Introduction. New York: Ungar,
1973.
Heiney, Donald, and Lenthiel H. Downs. Recent American Literature after 1930. New
York: Barron’s, 1973.
Hilfer, Tony. American Fiction since 1940. London: Longman, 1992.
Hoffman, Daniel, ed. Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. Cambridge.
MA: Harvard UP, 1979.
Hooks, Bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto, 1992.
---. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1993.
Horton, W. Rod and Herbert W. Edwards. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought.
New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1967.
Kamp, Jim, ed.. Reference Guide to American Literature. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James
Press,1994.
Klein, Marcus. After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century. Cleveland:
Meridian, 1965.
Logsdon, Loren, and Charles W. Mayer, eds. Since Flannery O’Connor: Essays on
the Contemporary American Short Story. Macomb, ILL: Western Illinois U, 1987.
Országh László, and Virágos Zsolt. Az amerikai irodalom története. Budapest: Eötvös
József, 1997.
Manzanas, Ana Maria, ed. Border Transits: Literature and Culture Across the Line. Critical
Approaches to Ethnic American Literature, no. Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2007.
Parini, Jay. The Columbia History of American Poetry: From the Puritans to Our Time.
New York: Columbia, 1993.
Rainwater, Catherine, and William J. Sheick, eds. Contemporary American Women
Writers. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1985.
Reynolds, Guy. Twentieth-Century American Women’s Fiction: A Critical Introduction.
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999.
Riggs, Thomas, ed. Contemporary Poets. 6th ed. New York: St. James, 1996.
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Rudman, Jack. American Literature: Civil War to the Present.
Ruland, Richard, and Malcolm Bradbury. From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History
of American Literature. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Tallack , Douglas. Twentieth-Century America: The Intellectual and Cultural
Context. London: Longman 1991.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970. New York: Harper, 1971.
Virágos Zsolt. A négerség és az amerikai irodalom. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1975.
---. Cf. Országh László.
Weaver, Gordon, ed. The American Short Story, 1945-1980: A Critical History. Hall:
Twayne, 1983.
Theoretical works:
Hooks, Bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. London: Pluto. 1992.
Chapter Two: Continued Devaluation of Black Womanhood (51-87)
Chapter Three: The Imperialism of Patriarchy (87-119)
Chapter four: Racism and Feminism: The Issue of Accountability (119-159)
Chapter five: Black Women and Feminism (159-197)
Bigsby, Christopher. The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture.
Cambridge: CUP, 2006.
---. “What, then, is the American?” (1-32)
Sollors, Werner. “African Americans since 1900.” (153-173)
Kleinberg, S.J. “Women in the Twenntieth Century.” (194-214)
Hall, Stuart and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996.
Chapter 4: Bhabha, Homi K. “Culture’s In-Between.” (53-61)
Chapter 6: Grossberg, Lawrence. “Identity and Cultural Studies – Is That All There Is?” (87-108)
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. London: Penguin, 1945.
Chapter 5 (79-112)
Texts for in-class presentations:
Gilead, Morahg. “The Art of Dr. Tamkin.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: Saul
Bellow. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 147-157. (print)
James, Cruise. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and Cold War
Hermeneutics, South Central Review 22.2 (2005): 95-109 (Project Muse)
Kennedy, Gerald J. “Parody as Exorcism: ‘The Raven’ and ‘The Jewbird.’ Joel Salzberg,
ed. Critical Essays on Bernard Malamud. Boston: G, K. Hall, 1987 (print)
McDonald, Walter R. “’You not a Bum, You a Man’: Ernest J Gaines’s Bloodline.”
Negro American Literature Forum 9.2 (1975): 47-49. (JSTOR)
Reynolds, Richard. "'The Magic Barrel': Pinye Salzman's Kadish." Studies in Short
Fiction, 10.1 (1973): 100-02.
Sklar, Howard. "What the Hell Happened to Maggie?": Stereotype, Sympathy, and
Disability in Toni Morrison's "Recitatif."Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability
Studies, 5.2 (2011):137-154. (Project Muse)
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Samuels, Wilfred D. “Liminality and the Search for Self in Toni Morrison’s Song of
Solomon” Minority Voices 5.2 (1981): 59-67. (print)
Szadziuk, Maria. "Culture as Transition: Becoming a Woman in Bi-Ethnic Space."
Mosaic. 32.3 (1999): 109-129. (E)
Tanner, Tony. “The Music of Invisibility.” H. Bloom, ed. Modern Critical Views: Ralph
Ellison, New York: Chelsea House, 1986. (print)
Miscellaneous Remarks
[1] Absences
It is essential to attend ALL the classes. If you must miss a class because of illness or
emergency, please let me know, and arrange to complete any work missed.
[2] Response Papers
Your response papers are due in class on the assigned days. There is no late paper
policy. The presentation and essay deadlines are NOT negotiable
[3] Plagiarism
Plagiarism of any kind will result in a failing grade for the seminar.
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