Universidad de Jaén

UNIT 1. FORMATIVE PERIOD: 1620-1836.

1.1. Colonization and Immigration. The French and Indian War.The Revolution. The New Republic.

1.2. Colonial Literature: Literary models and methods imported from Great Britain. The Puritan theory of style.

1.3. Towards a national literature: the frontier.

1.3. Towards a national literature: the frontier.

1.4. The Enlightenment. Newspapers, almanacs and magazines.

1.5. The beginnings of Romanticism.

UNIT 2. A NATIONAL LITERATURE IN NEW ENGLAND: 1836-1900.

2.1. Democratization of Politics. The Civil War. Reconstruction. Westward Expansion. Overseas Imperialism.

2.2. Transcendentalism.

2.3. Poetry of the Self.

2.4. Slavery.

2.5. Realism, naturalism, regionalism, local color and utopianism as transition movements.

2.5.1. Professional Women Writers.

UNIT 3. MODERN AGE: 1900-1945.

3. 1.The City. Industrialization. Capitalism. IWW. Migration to Europe. The Depression. The New Deal. IIWW.

3.2. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance.

3.3. A Lost Generation.

3.4. Jazz Age and the Red Decade: The Agit-prop Theater.

3.5. The Southem Literary Renaissance.

UNIT 4. AFTER WORLD WAR II: THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.

4. 1. The CoId War. The Liberation movements. Vietnam. The Watergate Fiasco. War in the Middle East.

4.2. From Black Mountain to the Poetry of the Deep Image.

4.3. Broadway.

4.4. Fictional genres: from neorealism to postmodernism.

4.5. Ethnic Literatures and the canon.

Lectures will be devoted to the analysis of the social and historical background of the chosen authors and works. We will read several chapters from literary history books included in the bibliographical references and critical articles that will be digitalised and uploaded to the subject's website. Students's participation in class discussions with comments and questions  will be favoured. 

Practical sessions will focus on the reading and analysis of the selected works, which belong to different periods of American literature. Those texts are available in the library both in individual volumes and as part of anthologies. Students should read and analyse them before the session. The reading guides to study the texts are included in the CD-ROM "A Map of American Literature", which has been written for this subject by Drs. Nieves Pascual Soler and Pilar Sánchez Calle. Students can buy it in the library on campus.

Students with special educational needs should contact the Student Attention Service (Servicio de Atención y Ayudas al Estudiante) in order to receive the appropriate academic support

The exam will include questions on the following issues:

-American literary history since the beginnings till the contemporary age.

-Identification of the most relevant works and authors

-Analysis of a selection of texts

The oral presentation will be assessed on the following terms:

-Linguistic correction

-Adequate selection of contents and issues to be discussed

-Adequate fluency and originality in the exposition of the contents

Students must pass the written exam so that the teacher can include attendance to class and the mark of the oral presentation as part of the final assessment