01  C/D   T 5:35-8:35  75723  BARNETT  RAB-018

THIS COURSE SAME AS 050:487

01-American Narratives: The American Dream and its Discontents

American Narratives will examine narratives in fiction, film, and popular music, focusing on those texts that lead us into the culture of a particular time and a particular American experience. We will begin with John Ford’s classic western, The Searchers, a powerful embodiment of the theme of 19th century Indian captivity and racial conflict. Later in the semester we will see The Best Years of Our Lives, a homecoming-from-World War II film, and The Maltese Falcon, a classic in the popular detective genre.

Partial Reading List

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Don DeLillo, White Noise

Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead

Edward P. Jones, The Known World

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Willa Cather, The Professor’s House

Kathryn Harrison, The Kiss

Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone

Strong attendance and class participation are essential to the seminar format, and there will be informal in-class oral reports as well as short papers and a culminating research paper.