Literary Revolutions: American Mobilities (5cr)

Objectives

The students can identify various literary modes and styles across a broad range of historical periods. They can explain how sociohistorical transformations affect literary texts and genres, and how literary texts respond to their sociohistorical and cultural contexts. They can illustrate how literary texts shape individual, national and cultural identities. They develop their analytical and critical skills in close reading texts from a variety of literary genres. They acquire further skills in presenting arguments orally and in writing.

Content

The course unit focuses on examining the interplay between literary texts and their shifting sociohistorical contexts. Students choose one Literary Revolutions -course from a range of special topic courses: the course options provide different historical, thematic, aesthetic and theoretical perspectives on the interaction between literary and social transformations.The course especially focuses on the concept of mobility and its meanings and realisations in American society and literature. These realisations range from social mobility and the American Dream to gendered and racialised aspects of mobility.