Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: English

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: TOPICS IN LITERATURE: THE ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN (1) ***** SECTION 1: The course investigates Postmodern cultural expressions by focusing on emerging new styles, themes, and forms, particularly (but not exclusively) located in the mid-1960s. Novels by Barthelme, Pynchon and DeLillo, plays by Beckett and Stoppard, movies by Antonioni, Kubric, and DePalma, as well as music by the Beatles, a postmodern Three Little Pigs, and several examples of postmodern on Tuesdays and on Thursdays (particularly when we view a movie) from 1:00 to 3:45. Three essays and several short papers are required. ***** INSTRUCTOR: Morris, Wesley ***** TOPICS IN LITERATURE: DETECTIVE FICTION (2) ***** SECTION 2: This course will focus on the American (versus British) detective novel. We will read both the classics of the genre (Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, The Thin Man, and Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep, Ross MacDonald, The Galton Case) and some of the lesser-known masterpieces (K.C. Constantine, The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes). We will also look at how literature outside the genre sometimes engages it in ways that subvert or call into question fundamental assumptions: The key text here will be Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Enrollment limited to 15 students. ***** INSTRUCTOR: Snow, Ed ***** TOPICS IN LITERATURE: WE THE PEOPLE, REPRESENTATIONS OF THE POPULAR IN THE AMERICAS Repeatable for Credit.