Faculty of Arts
American Studies
Module Catalogue
Semester 2 - 2015/2016
Module Code: AM2503
Module Name: Writing America
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
15
1
Level 5
Denise Hanrahan
Module Description:
This module will consider the ways in which American writers have constructed literary or
textual 'realities' for the United States by reference to a range of writings from Romanticism
to the contemporary period. The aim of the module is to investigate the ways in which the
US has been 'imagined' as a text, culture, or ideology and these areas will be explored
through reference to a range of areas, themes, movements and individual writers covering
the spectrum of American writing. Authors who might be considered therefore include:
Emerson, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Brockden Brown, Dos Passos, Hart Crane, Olson,
Faulkner, Carlos Williams, McGuane, O'Connor, Proulx, West, Paley, Brautigan, Pynchon,
Reed, Gass, Coover, Barth, Delany, Russ, Dick, Morrison, Hong Kingston, Marmon Silko,
Piercy, and Maupin.
Specific to:
American Studies
American Studies Joint
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
002:
Written assignment: book report
(1500 words)
Essay (2000 words)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
15/16
001:
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Day
Time
Module Code: AM3505
Module Name: Identity in Contemporary Film
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
15
1
Level 6
Jude Davies
Module Description:
This module focuses on American films from the early 1990s on, placing them in the context
of debates over identity that have their origins in the cultural criticism and demands for
representation associated with the movements of identity politics: civil rights, feminism, and
lesbian and gay liberation. Therefore, particular attention is given to films that explicitly
engage with political debates about identity and history, such as Falling Down, Forrest
Gump, Thelma and Louise, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, In and Out, Three Kings, Bamboozled,
Fahrenheit 9/11, Brokeback Mountain and Crash. Links will be made to other films such as
Lion King, Independence Day, American Beauty, X-Men, Legally Blonde, and War of the
Worlds whose positioning with respect to these debates is less explicit or covert.
Specific to:
Assessments:
001:
002:
Availability:
Occ.
A
American Studies
American Studies Joint
Film Studies
Film Studies Joint
Written assignment (essay)
Oral assessment and presentation
(presentation)
Year
15/16
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Day
Time