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AMERICAN PROSE FICTION SINCE 1945:
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN ETHICS AND CULTURE
(BTAN33000BA05)
Time and Venue:
Tuesday 10.00-11.40 MBlg. 54
Instructor: Csató Péter
Office: Room 108/2 (ext. 23092)
E-mail: csato.peter@arts.unideb.hu
Office hours:
Monday 12.00-13.00 (MBlg. 108/2)
Wednesday 10.00-11.00 (MBlg. 108/2)
Course description
The course aims to familiarize students with some of the major works of American prose fiction after 1945. However, the
ordinary survey-character will be offset by operating with a specific thematic focus on the changing outlook of cultural and
ethical paradigms emerging in the wake of postmodern theories of culture and subjectivity. Each literary text on the agenda
can be interpreted from the vantage point of the recognition that neither cultural identity nor ethical commitment is an
essential given, but a product of various socially-constructed discursive practices.
The texts to be discussed can be divided into two groups, one of which includes works reflecting on issues
concerning ethics and morality in a variety of ways, such as J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951), or Chuck
Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996). The other group comprises texts which bear upon questions of ethnic and cultural identity,
such as the Chicano Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (1972), or the Chinese-American Maxine Hong Kingston’s The
Woman Warrior (1976).
Requirements for a grade
Participation and attendance (15%)
Active participation in class discussion is essential, and will have a mighty influence on one’s final grade. Participation can
take several forms, though. When, for instance, you feel you have lost an opportunity to express your views in class, or
something escaped your comprehension, I am happy to consult anyone in my office hours. You are also welcome to submit
short response papers when you think we passed by a certain aspect of a work you would have found important to discuss.
Regular class attendance is required: more than three absences will result in “no grade” for the course. Furthermore, if you
happen to miss a class, you are expected to submit a short response paper (quasi reader’s journal) on the reading scheduled
for the particular class you missed.
Graded assignments
End-term test (35%)
The course will conclude with an end-term test intended to measure the students’ comprehension and mastery of the material
covered through the semester.
Final assignment (50%)
EITHER
An oral review of a theoretical text which you will be assigned during the course of the semester. You will choose one of
nine texts, each of which focuses either on ethical or on cultural issues. You will be expected to read the text, comprehend it
as best as you can, raise questions about/in relation to it, and be able to discuss it in the context of one or more of the literary
texts covered. The last 5 weeks of the semester will be allocated to the oral reviews, conducted in the instructor’s office.
OR
A written assignment which involves meta-interpretive reflection on critical essays published on the literary texts we will
have covered. The aim of the assignment is to improve your skills in reading and understanding critical material in a
reflective manner. You have to choose one of six texts (to be made available later during the semester) and perform an
analysis of the given critical approach according to a specific set of criteria divulged later. The paper should be cca. 2500
words in length. It is important to note that the essays this time do not serve as “secondary material,” but as the primary focus
of your attention.
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SCHEDULE
Week 1 – Orientation
Week 2 – The individual vs. society
J.D Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Week 3 – Morality and everyday religion
Flannery O’Connor: “Good Country People” (1955)
John Updike: “Pigeon Feathers” (1962)
Week 4 – The war novel I
Joseph Heller: Catch-22 (1961)
Week 5 – Eclecticism and multidisciplinarity
Thomas Pynchon: “Entropy” (1961)
Week 6 – The war novel II
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
Week 7
– CONSULTATION WEEK: NO CLASS
Week 8 – The formation of cultural identity (Chicano fiction)
Rudolfo Anaya: Bless Me, Ultima (1972)
Week 9 – Ethnicity vs. dominant culture (Chinese-American Fiction)
Maxine Hong Kingston: The Woman Warrior (1976)
Week 10 – Postmodernist experiments
Raymond Federman: Smiles on Washington Square (1985)
Week 11 – Minimalism
Raymond Carver: “A Serious Talk”
Ann Beattie: “In the White Night”
Bobbie Ann Mason: “Nancy Culpepper”
Week 12 – Identity as fiction
Philip Roth: The Counterlife (1986)
Week 13 – Violence as language
Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
Week 14 – End-term test
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List of texts for the oral review (literature, culture, and ethics)
Attridge, Derek. “Innovation, Literature, Ethics: Relating to the Other.” PMLA 114.1 (1999) 20-31.
Edelstein, Marilyn. “Ethics and Contemporary American Literature: Revisiting the Controversy Over
John
Gardner’s On Moral Fiction.” Pacific Coast Philology. 31.1 (1996) 40-53.
Freed, Mark M. “Cultural Studies, Ethics, and the Eclipse of Agency.” The Journal of the
Midwest Modern Language Association. 34.2 (2001) 1-14.
Geertz, Clifford. “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man”
In: The Interpretation of Cultures. NY: Basic, 1973. 33-54.
Kroll, Barry. “Arguing about Public Issues: What Can We Learn From Practical Ethics?”. Rhetorical
Review. 16.1 (1997) 105-119.
Nussbaum, Martha C. “Public Philosophy and International Feminism.” Ethics 108. 4 (1998) 762-796.
Rorty, Richard. “The Decline of Redemptive Truth and the Rise of Literary Culture” 1-19.
(Unpublished)
Shklar, Judith N. “Putting Cruelty First.” Daedalus 111.3 Summer (1982) 17-28.
Spacks, Patricia. “The Novel as Ethical Paradigm.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction. 21.2/3 (1988) 181188.
Texts for the written assignment
Hewitt, Andrew. “Masochism and Terror: Fight Club and the Violence of Neo-fascist Ressentiment.”
Telos
136 (2006) 104-131.
Hoppe, John K. “The Technological Hybrid as Post-American: Cross-Cultural Genetics in Jasmine”
MELUS 24.4 (1999) 137-156.
Lim, Jeehyun. “Cutting the Tongue: Language and the Body in Kingston's The Woman Warrior”
MELUS
31.3 (2006) 49-65.
Sahlin, Nicki. “‘But This Road Doesn’t Go Anywhere: The Existential Dilemma in Less Than Zero.”
Critique 33.1 (1991) 23-42.