Naziv kolegija: Književnost i vizualnost: američki film, naracija i psihoanaliza
Nastavnica: dr. sc. Tatjana Jukić, red.prof.
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Trajanje: jedan semestar, 2. ili 4., ljetni
Status: izborni kolegij
Oblik nastave: 1 sat predavanja, 2 sata seminara tjedno
Uvjeti za upis kolegija: upisan 2. ili 4. semestar diplomskog studija

SILABUS:
1. tjedan
Uvod u povijest američkog filma. Film kao američka umjetnost.
2. tjedan
Klasični Hollywood. Narativni stil.
3. tjedan
Film i naratologija, uvod.
4.tjedan
Film i psihoanaliza, uvod.
5. i 6. tjedan
Screwball komedija: Hawks (His Girl Friday) i Sturges (The Lady Eve).
7. i 8. tjedan
Screwball komedija: Lubitsch (Ninotchka i To Be or Not to Be).
Prvi kolokvij i priprema za seminarski rad.
9. i 10. tjedan
Melodrama: Wyler (The Heiress) i Sirk (The Imitation of Life).
11. i 12. tjedan
Thriller/ Noir: Hitchcock (Rear Window i Vertigo).
13. i 14. tjedan
Western: Ford (My Darling Clementine i The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance).
15. tjedan
Drugi kolokvij.

 

Način polaganja ispita: Konačnu ocjenu sačinjava uspjeh iz dviju pismenih provjera znanja (jedne sredinom i druge krajem semestra, 30% + 30% konačne ocjene), te iz eseja na zadanu temu (30% konačne ocjene), uz redovito pohađanje nastave i aktivno sudjelovanje u njoj (10% konačne ocjene).

Način praćenja kvalitete i uspješnosti izvedbe predmeta: Anonimna studentska anketa na kraju semestra.

LITERATURA:
OBAVEZNA
Bronfen, Elisabeth. Home in Hollywood. The Imaginary Geography of Cinema (izbor)
Cavell, Stanley. Contesting Tears (izbor)
Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness (izbor)    
Copjec, Joan. „More! From Melodrama to Magnitude“
Harvey, James. Romantic Comedy in Hollywood. From Lubitsch to Sturges (izbor)
Heath, Stephen. „Cinema and Psychoanalysis: Parallel Histories“    
Jukić, Tatjana. „Film, politika, psihoanaliza: Ernst Lubitsch“    
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”    
Žižek, Slavoj. Looking Awry. An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. (izbor)    
Žižek, Slavoj (ur.) Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) (izbor)    

DOPUNSKA
Bergstrom, Janet (ur.). Endless Night. Cinema and Psychoanalysis: Parallel Histories. (izbor)
Crowe, Cameron. Conversations with Billy Wilder. (izbor)
De Lauretis, Teresa. Alice Doesn’t. Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. (izbor)
De Lauretis, Teresa. Figures of Resistance. Essays in Feminist Theory. (izbor)
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1. (izbor)
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2. (izbor)
Jukić, Tatjana. „The Awful Truth: On Metonymic Rationality in Hawks and Cavell“
Kaplan, E. Ann. Trauma Culture. The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. (izbor)
Kaplan, E. Ann. Women and Film. Both Sides of the Camera (izbor)
Modleski, Tania. The Women Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock and Feminist Theory (izbor)
Novak, Ivana; Jela Krečič; Mladen Dolar (ur.). Lubitsch Can’t Wait. A Theoretical Examination. (izbor)
Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror. The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. (izbor)

Course title: The History and Paradigms of American Studies 2 (A, 19th c./20th c.)
Instructor: Dr. Jelena Šesnić
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective (obligatory for American Studies majors in the 8th semester)
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the 8th and/or 10th semester

Course description: This course is a companion course to the History and Paradigms of American Studies1 which investigated the origins of the discipline of American Studies. Since the 1970s, however, the discipline undertook to interrogate some of its main premises based on the changing conceptions of U.S. society and the nation-state. Even though the revisionist interventions begin to be felt already in the 1970s, we will posit as a starting point of our inquiry a methodological break observable in the 1980s as „ideology“ becomes a necessary accompaniment of any AS inquiry. The next historical break—the end of the Cold War in 1989—indicates another momentous shift as we follow the developments thereafter. The next point of interest is 9/11 and the way it refocused the work in the discipline. These will demonstrate the efforts by so-called New Americanists to devise contesting models of American culture, while the emphases in their agendas may differ, as our readings will show. In the process of revising American Studies various theories have been made use of, ranging from New Historicism to poststructuralism, to ethnic/ race, feminist and gender studies to Marxism and cultural studies to international/ transnational perspectives. Paralelly, it ought to become evident how each new methodology in the discipline invents, as it were, a new conception of „America“ as its object of study while ur-theories and underlying conceptions in the discipline of AS show great resilience and attest to continuity. The course is obligatory for AS majors.
Course requirements: regular attendance, participation in class discussions, mid-term and final test (continuous assessment), presentation in class, written assignments and a final seminar paper

Syllabus:

Primary texts:

1. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay: Federalist Papers (1788; selection)
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson: selected essays
3. Henry David Thoreau: Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854; selection); „Civil Disobedience“
4. W.E.B. DuBois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903; selection)
5. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
6. Sherman Alexie: Reservation Blues (1995)

Week 1: Laying the ground for (new) American Studies: disciplinary premises and theoretical frameworks (Fluck, L. Marx)

Week 2: Ideology and readings of American (literary) artefacts in the 1980s (Bercovitch and Jehlen)

Week 3: Ideology and readings of American (literary) artefacts in the 1980s (Fisher)

Week 4: End of the Cold War and repositionings within the discipline (New Americanists and a new field-imaginary) (Pease)

Week 5: End of the Cold War and repositionings within the discipline (New Americanists and a new field-imaginary) (Rowe) (A short written response.)

Week 6: End of the Cold War and repositionings within the discipline (New Americanists and a new field-imaginary) (Kaplan)

Week 7: Mid-term test

Week 8: Framing the transnational turn (Radway)

Week 9: Framing the transnational turn (Porter)

Week 10: Framing the transnational turn (Elliott, Lauter) (A short written response.)

Week 11: Post 9/11 and a new state in/ of the discipline (Aravamudan)

Week 12: Post 9/11 and a new state in/ of the discipline (Kaplan)

Week 13: Post 9/11 and a new state in/ of the discipline (Pease) (Seminar paper due.)

Week 14: International American Studies (Chenetier, Kennedy)

Week 15: Final test; course evaluation

Readings (alterations possible)

-Bercovitch, Sacvan, and Myra Jehlen, eds. Ideology and Classic American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. (selection)

– Castronovo, Russ, and Susan Gillman, eds. States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. (selection)

– Fisher, Phillip. The New American Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. (selection)
– Fluck, Winfried, Donald E. Pease, and John Carlos Rowe, eds. Re-Framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2011. (selection)

-Pease, Donald, and Robyn Wiegman, eds. The Futures of American Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. (selection)

– Radway, Janice A., Kevin K. Gaines, Barry Shank, and Penny Von Eschen.  American Studies: An Anthology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. (selection)
– Rowe, John Carlos The Cultural Politics of the New American Studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 2012.Open Humanities Press. http://www.scribd.com/doc/132330117/Rowe-The-Cultural-Politics-of-the-New-American-Studies (selection)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Russell Reising
Office B-008
Office hours: from March 3, Thursday 14:00-15:00, Friday 12:00-13:00
Email: russreising@gmail.com
Phone: 99 7952930 (Not after 10 PM or before 9 AM!)
All poems indicated are easily available online. Use links I have provided when possible.

March 3-4
Introduction and business
TEACHING STRATEGIES AND COURSE POLICIES/COURSE EXPECTATIONS:
I approach my literature course with two primary goals: to teach certain works of literature (subject matter) and to help students improve their reading, writing, and analytical skills. In my opinion, the second of these goals is the real function of my presentations and our class discussions. Students who are not dedicated to improving these skills rarely do well in my classes. Students who are passionate about their studies will find that I am willing to go to extraordinary lengths to help, focus, provoke, challenge, and inspire you. Students who do not do the work will find that I have little patience or respect for those who squander their educational opportunities. Even if the particular subject matter we are studying does not greatly interest you, use the course to improve your communication and analytical skills.
I expect students to have finished all readings by the first class for which they are assigned, and I expect students to have given some thought to these works’ primary themes, mysteries, styles, etc. before coming to class. Students who have done these two things do much better in my classes than do students who don’t. I do not regard it as my responsibility to explain our works to students who haven’t done the reading. I do not accept late papers!
I assume you all know the plot, and, unless you tell me otherwise, I will assume you have a comfortable understanding of the work on the literal level. It is completely up to students to ask questions about works and/or issues that trouble or elude them. I would love it if each class could be spent with me responding to students’ questions, problems, provocations, etc.   I believe that students who struggle with the meanings of works of literature and try out their own interpretive ideas learn much more than do students who sit back and simply expect to have the materials explained. That might do in some courses or in some disciplines; I can’t imagine it being responsible pedagogy or student behavior in upper-division literature courses.
I will very rarely spend time discussing the biographical and/or historical contexts of the works we study unless they bear directly on the discussions we are having or on the analytical points I want to make. Nor should students spend time in their formal essays simply rehearsing the biography of the author or some irrelevant historical data. My courses stress issues much more than they do historical or biographical factoids. Given the richness of many internet sources for such information, I regard it as irresponsible to waste your time with insignificant details that anyone can easily find with a well-focused google search! This is not to say that students aren’t encouraged to probe the biographical or historical contexts of our materials, only that I won’t dwell inordinately on them unless they are truly germane to our approach.
I tend not to use highly organized class notes for our discussions, as I try to make each class responsive to students’ needs. This results in class discussions that some students find less organized than those they are used to or prefer. All students, therefore, are strongly encouraged to ask questions as they arise and also to take good notes.
I do not assign topics for your formal essays, but I will help you in any way necessary as you formulate and refine your topics and approaches. I believe that struggling with the material, coming up with a topic, refining that topic, and then writing and revising a paper are all crucial elements in how/what students learn when they approach a writing assignment. Professors who assign specific topics are simply giving so many take home essay exam assignments. I believe that people all learn in many different ways, reading the assigned works of literature, consulting secondary sources, participating in class discussions, and in all facets of composing a formal essay. Some students like to join in class discussions and/or ask questions; others prefer quietly processing what goes on in class. I try to make room for all learning styles, but I do, as I say above, expect students to work hard and to complete all the assignments on time.

Russ’s World Weary Guidelines for Writers of Academic Papers

(These guidelines constitute the basis of what I expect in your written work!)

1. Unless instructed otherwise, you should assume that your audience knows the work you are writing about at the literal level, but that they can be enlightened about important themes, characters, interconnections, and other significant stylistic elements in the work. As a writer, you reveal something not obvious about the work(s) you write about. Plot summary is almost never good, and almost the only times you should be discussing the plot of the work is to provide evidence for the analytical point you are making.
2. A good, analytical essay will begin with a thesis section in which you articulate what you are writing about and provide some sense of what is significant about the position you will be advancing. A good thesis is argumentative, i.e., it advances a position that is debatable and not merely obvious to any one who has experienced the same work of art. A good thesis teaches your reader what to expect and pay attention to, and it helps guide and discipline your own writing. Think of it as a contract between you and your reader, committing you to perform a specific analytical task.
3. A good conclusion should never merely repeat the “main points” of your paper. Repetition and redundancy rarely characterize a good conclusion. Read almost any substantial article in almost any quality periodical; their conclusions NEVER merely repeat, summarize, or restate their main points. A good conclusion should sound conclusive, not repetitious! Good conclusions can do many things; experiment with different ways of “concluding” your paper on a strong note, not with a throw-away paragraph that merely repeats what you have already done.
4. An analytical essay should represent the highest level of sophistication and specificity you have reached in your consideration of a work. In other words, it should report your conclusions, not your “thinking in progress.” You should never include passages that merely rehearse your encounters with the poem, as in:

“When I first read this poem, I thought it meant X, but, after deeper reading and more careful consideration, I now believe it means Y.”

This might be an accurate history of your experience with the poem/novel/story/ play/film/song/etc., and it might well be an important consideration as you plan your paper, but it has no place in a finished, formal essay. Similarly, almost all references to “I think,” “I feel,” “In my opinion,” etc. should be strictly avoided. They are useless.

5. I will evaluate your formal essays with attention to all possible elements of the written language, from the content to syntactic, grammatical, mechanical, organizational and other rhetorical elements of your work. Please note: error free writing is not necessarily good writing! Good writing will engage the reader with solid content, logical analysis, coherent organization at the paragraph and essay level, and with lively, varied sentences that don’t lull the reader with monotonous, repetitious words, sentence structures, sentence lengths, or ideas.
6. Most importantly, your essay should communicate your ideas about a work. Your thesis (not the “plot” of the work) will be the driving force of your paragraphs and of your entire essay. Most of your paragraphs should begin by indicating how this particular paragraph furthers the analytical thesis you advanced in your thesis/introductory section. Papers and paragraphs that begin with plot summary rarely do more than merely summarize.
7. I will fail any student who plagiarizes any work in this course, and I will pursue their expulsion from the university. If you have any doubt at all about what constitutes academic dishonesty, please contact me before turning in any work.

 March 10-11
Reading week

March 17-18; March 24-25
Unit One: “Something’s Happening Here”
Films: The Graduate, The Swimmer
Novel: Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night
Albums: Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’
Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends

First: try to understand and appreciate each work as a unique work of art. Pay attention to its style, its themes and motifs, its characters, its imagery and metaphors. Try to formulate an interpretive perspective for each work individually, and then try to related each work to the others in the unit. This reminder will introduce the study guides for each unit!

 Unit One Study Guide and Questions:
As the Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth,” puts it, “Something’s happening here//What it is ain’t exactly clear.”   Many artists and cultural spokespeople recognized that something was changing, and they wrote books, composed songs, and directed films in various attempts to address, assess, and understand these changes. If John Fitzgerald Kennedy suggested that “the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself,” popular artists offered their own versions of this state of affairs in songs like “Change is Now” (the Byrds) and in albums like Forever Changes (Love). The United States emerged from World War II and the 1950s in a position of unprecedented economic, military, and cultural power, and yet, by the early years of the decade, cultural spokespeople were no longer confident that the society was good, moral, progressive. They, like Hamlet, thought that there was something rotten in the U.S. Like many generations before them, take the middle decades of the nineteenth century and the social criticisms articulated by writers like Henry David Thoreau (very popular in the 1960s), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Margaret Fuller, and Herman Melville, writers, thinkers, and artists turned their moral and ethical vision to what they believed to be the crises of the 1960s. Women, African-Americans, draftees, folk musicians, and students all began to question American values and American ideas in powerful new ways.

1.  How do the works collected in this unit represent and analyze the nature of change during the decade of the 1960s?
2. How do these works define “the past” and the current state of affairs in the U.S., and how do the characters in these works attempt to break away from the conventions and habits of the past?
3. Are these changes good, bad, neutral, successful, unsuccessful
4. What common themes and motifs link these works?
5. Does any coherent picture emerge of the status quo, of youth, of values, of “the American way”?
6. What other works of art can you compare with those included in our work for Unit One?

Unit Two

March 24-25; March 31/ April 1; April 7-8
Unit Two: Boys, Girls, and “The Man”
Films: Easy Rider, Cool Hand Luke
Novel: Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Albums: Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Déjà vu
As always, try to understand and appreciate each work as a unique work of art. Pay attention to its style, its themes and motifs, its characters, its imagery and metaphors. Try to formulate an interpretive perspective for each work individually, and then try to related each work to the others in the unit

Study Guide and Questions:
One of the dominant themes of culture during the 1960s was the emergence (maybe the re-emergence) of a unique version of individualism, often understood in conflict with conventional society. Ralph Waldo Emerson (in essays like “Self Reliance” and “The American Scholar”) and Henry David Thoreau had championed such individualism in the middle of the nineteenth century, and many counter-culture spokespeople drew on their works and philosophies for inspiration. Thoreau’s Walden, for example, was very popular reading during the 60s. Each of these works explores the tensions between individuals and conventional society. Some conclude that the “free” individual will always be crushed by the forces of conformity, while others suggest the possibility of strong individuals establishing some kind of life safe from the confines and intrusions of “the man.”

1. What is the role of nostalgia in each of these works of art?       How do they understand/value the past (or some version of it) as a possible source of value and stability in an increasingly technological and commercial world?
2. How does each of these works represent the individual capable of challenging the “crushing” values of the present?
3. How do they represent the forces that try to contain, confine, alter, or otherwise neutralize challenges to the status quo?
4. How do they represent tensions, contradictions, and inconsistencies within the characters trying to break out of or reform the “system”?
5. What are the primary contradictions examined and dramatized in these works? How do they relate to the issues and themes of the other units of our course?

 April 14-15; April 21-22; May 5-6
Unit Three: Communist Infiltration and Nuclear Terror
Films; Dr Strangelove, Fail Safe, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Novel: DeLillo, End Zone
Selected music provided by Professor Reising
Read essay by Professor Reising in Cultural Logic, posted at: http://clogic.eserver.org/2003/reising.html

1. Love/sex:the film is called Dr. Strangelove, after all! What vision of human emotions, love, and family relationships under the pressures of the Cold War does this film communicate?
2. Suspicion: how do suspicion, paranoia, and a general environment of fear and distrust between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. figure in the film? Are there areas of commonality between the two cultures, or does the film represent some absolute difference?
3. Machines/Technology: Strangelove and Fail Safe repeatedly discuss the impact of machines and the mechanization of military weaponry, especially through computerization. What kind of commentary do they offer on technology and human life?
4. Religion:while not a dominant theme in these films, religion and/or a belief or set of beliefs in god figures into these scenarios of the end of the human race. What is the role of religion in these films and in other works from the Cold War era?
5. What are the other themes, recurring images, and interesting moments in these films? Be able to discuss the films in their entirety.
6. Strangelove makes use of soundtrack songs, while Fail Safe is one of the few movies I know of without any soundtrack music whatsoever. Think about the role of music in the one and the absence of music in the other.
7. How do both films characterize the relationship between Americans and Soviets? What are the people like? Who is to blame for the events that both films examine?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original, 1955 version; new version as well, if possible)
The Blob (Original 1958 version; new version as well, if possible)
Invaders from Mars (Original 1953 version; new version as well, is possible)
The Manchurian Candidate 1962
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

This might seem like a strange grouping of films, but there is a method to the plan. Think about ways that these works address similar concerns and fears, even though their tones, styles, and explicit themes might differ significantly.

1. What is the ultimate threat presented in all of these works? Where does it come from? How is it defined and identified?
2. How do the “heroes” of these works establish themselves in opposition to the threat posed by “alien” invasion and infiltration?
3. How do the tones and atmospheres of these workss contribute to their overall themes and sense of urgency?
4. What vision of human emotions, love, and family relationships under the pressures of the Cold War do these works communicate?
5. While each of these works suggests that mindless and robotic conformity is a constant and serious threat to American ideas of “freedom,” each film nevertheless celebrates some element of human (i.e., “American”) individualism that cannot be extinguished. How do they do so?
6. How do these works contain scenes, characters, and situations that have a specifically Cold War relevance? What are those scenes, and how do they fit into the films as a whole?

 May 12-13; May 19-20 (Holiday no classes); May 26-27
Unit Four: Rage and Protest
Films: Wild in the Streets, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Novel: Don DeLillo, Great Jones Street
Poem:   Ginsberg, Howl
Albums: Jefferson Airplane, Volunteers,
James Brown, Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud
Selected music
As always, try to understand and appreciate each work as a unique work of art. Pay attention to its style, its themes and motifs, its characters, its imagery and metaphors. Try to formulate an interpretive perspective for each work individually, and then try to relate each work to the others in the unit.

Study Guide and Questions:
Revolution, rebellion, the so-called generation gap, the “Black Power” movement, the emergence of feminism, SDS, PLP, SLF, Black Panthers, White Panthers, and many other groups and energies remain one of the enduring images from the 1960s. They all seemed to take inspiration from Marlon Brando’s (in The Wild One) answer to the question of “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” Brando responded: “What do you got?” Fragile yet intense, revolutionary energies during the 1960s were fed by the fears of the Cold War, the war in Vietnam (and a gradual realization that the foreign policy of the United States had been much less than admirable), the draft, urban unrest, conformity (suburbs and business suits didn’t appeal to people reading Walden), oppression, social injustice, racism, and, according to some, too much affluence. Radical politics, communal living experiments, resistance to the draft, questioning of traditional gender roles and conventional images of “success” fueled much of the culture of the period.

Each of these works represents some version of political struggle against the “establishment.”

1. How do the characters/protagonist/point of view in each work define “the establishment,” and what strategies does it employ in its struggle?
2. How does each work depict the social/political context it explores? How do the individuals or groups represented in the work relate to that context?
3. What would count as a successful rebellion against the status quo in these works? Do these works succeed or fail in their struggles?
4. What connections can you draw among the works included in this unit?
5. Beginning with Howl, these artists try to capture a broad range of emotional, intellectual, social, and political realities. Sometimes this range is so diverse as to seem almost incoherent or contradictory. Try to understand these diverse elements within each work and among the various works in the unit.

 June 2-3; June 9-10 Conclusions and Student Presentations

 

Naziv kolegija: Henry James i Edith Wharton: simptomatika američkog modernizma
Nastavnica: dr. sc. Tatjana JUKIĆ, red.prof.
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Trajanje: jedan semestar, 8., ljetni
Status: izborni kolegij
Oblik nastave: 1 sat predavanja, 2 sata seminara tjedno
Uvjeti za upis kolegija: upisan osmi semestar
Cilj kolegija: Kolegij se fokusira na opis i analizu prikazivačkih praksi konstitutivnih za roman modernizma, no prije svega na dekonstrukciju uvriježene opreke između viktorijanskoga romana i romana modernizma, na primjeru pripovjedne proze Henryja Jamesa i Edith Wharton. Ta će analiza zauzvrat poslužiti kao podloga za komparaciju pripovjednih praksi tih romana i njihovih filmskih adaptacija, posebno s obzirom na sedimentaciju viktorijanskih prikazivačkih praksi u razvoju filmske naracije. Prorada tih sadržaja važna je posebno stoga što konvergencije filma i modernizma snažno participiraju u genealogiji suvremene kulture, ali i problemskih čvorova konstituentnih za humanističke znanosti; stoga je u fokusu kolegija upravo razvoj analitičkih sposobnosti studenata. Nastava u kolegiju uključivat će i predavanje i seminarski tip rada.
Uloga kolegija u ukupnom kurikulumu: Prorada tih sadržaja važna je posebno stoga što konvergencije filma i modernizma snažno participiraju u genealogiji suvremene kulture, ali i problemskih čvorova konstituentnih za humanističke znanosti.
Korištene metode: Dijalog studenata s nastavnikom i zajednička analiza materijala, prije svega dostupnih elektronskih izvora.

Sadržaj kolegija (po tjednima):

1. Uvod u problem književne periodizacije modernizma.
2. Analiza Henryja Jamesa kao fundacijske figure modernizma.
3. Analiza Henryja Jamesa kao fundacijske figure naratologije. Vizualne figure Jamesove naratologije.
4. Rasprava o romanu Washington Square kao naraciji koja dekonstruira uvriježenu književnoperiodizacijsku opreku između viktorijanske književnosti i modernizma.
5. Analiza prikazivačkih praksi dviju filmskih verzija Jamesova romana i komparacija s narativnom praksom Jamesova romana.
6. Analiza prikazivačkih praksi dviju filmskih verzija Jamesova romana i komparacija s narativnom praksom Jamesova romana.
7. Čitanje Washington Squarea kao alegorije povijesti narativnoga filma i psihoanalize, u dijalogu s kritičkom teorijom Stanleya Cavella.
8. Usporedba takve analize Washington Squarea s čitanjem Jamesove novele The Turn of the Screw Shoshane Felman.
9. Analiza književnopovijesne pozicije pripovjedne proze Edith Wharton kao «zastarjele» sljednice Henryja Jamesa.
10. Čitanje romana The Age of Innocence prema genealoškome okviru koji mu zadaju romani Henryja Jamesa i The House of Mirth.
11. Analiza prikazivačkih praksi Scorseseova filma The Age of Innocence i komparacija s narativnom praksom romana.
12. Analiza prikazivačkih praksi Scorseseova filma The Age of Innocence i komparacija s narativnom praksom romana.
13. Čitanje The Age of Innocence kao alegorije povijesti narativnoga filma i psihoanalize, u dijalogu s kritičkom teorijom Stanleya Cavella.
14. Rasprava o povijesti kakvu konstituiraju suvremena čitanja pripovjedne proze Henryja Jamesa i Edith Wharton.
15. Evaluacija.

Literatura:

A. Obvezatna
– Henry James, Washington Square.
– Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.
– Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
– Shoshana Felman. «Turning the Screw of Interpretation». Yale French Studies. 55-6 (1977). 94-207.
– Pamela Knights. «The Social Subject in The Age of Innocence». The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton, ur. Millicent Bell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1995. 20-46.
– Dorothy J. Hale. «Henry James and the Invention of Novel Theory». The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, ur. Jonathan Freedman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998. 79-101.
– Stanley Cavell. Contesting Tears. The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman. Chicago i London: The University of Chicago Press. 1996. (uvod i izabrana poglavlja).
– Andrew Gibson. Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel. London i New York: Routledge. 1999. 29-36.
– Maurice Blanchot. «The Turn of the Screw». The Book to Come. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2003. 126-133.
– Ian Christie i David Thompson, ur. Scorsese on Scorsese. London i New York: Faber and Faber. 2003. 176-197.
– Tatjana Jukić. „Visuality and its Discontents: Novels on Screen and the Case of The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. European Journal for Semiotic Studies. Vol. 15 (2-4). 2003. 555 – 566.
– Tatjana Jukić. «Pogovor». Edith Wharton. Kuća veselja, prev. Ivan Ott. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. 2003. 343-352.
– Tatjana Jukić. «Nesmireni zavrtanj» (pogovor). Henry James. Okretaj zavrtnja, prev. Tanja Žakula. Zagreb: Profil. 2005. 147-151.

B. Dopunska

U pripremi.

Način polaganja ispita: Konačnu ocjenu sačinjava uspjeh iz dviju pismenih provjera znanja (jedne sredinom i druge krajem semestra, 30% + 30% konačne ocjene), te iz eseja na zadanu temu (30% konačne ocjene), uz redovito pohađanje nastave i aktivno sudjelovanje u njoj (10% konačne ocjene).

Način praćenja kvalitete i uspješnosti izvedbe predmeta: Anonimna studentska anketa na kraju semestra.

(više…)

Izvođač i nositelj: Dr.sc.  Iva Polak, izv.prof.
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Status: izborni
Semestar: 2. ili 4.
Uvjeti za upis kolegija: upisan bilo koji smjer diplomskog studija Odsjeka za anglistiku
Okvirni sadržaj kolegija: Odabranim književnim i filmskim djelima od druge polovine 20. stoljeća nadalje pokazat će se nova preispisivanja australskog identiteta. Kroz sup(r)ostavljanje kolonijalnog i postkolonijalnog, većinskog i manjinskog, povijesti i pri-povijesti, prikazat će se složenost uspostave australskog identitata i njegovih suvremenih reinskripcija. Zbog udaljenosti australskog prostora i boljeg razumijevanja suvremenog australskog trenutka, kolegij nudi i pregled australske kulturalne povijesti kao i prikaz kulture australskih Aboridžina.
Cilj: Osvijestiti specifikume australskog književnog i filmskog prostora kao i nužnost drukčijeg pristupanja manjinskom tekstu koji je ispisan specifičnim kulturnim kodom.
Studentske obveze: ispunjavanje elemenata kontinuirane provjere znanja, koji obuhvaćaju redovito pohađanje nastave, provjeru čitanja odabranih književnih djela i gledanja odabranih filmova, kraće pisane zadatke u okviru nastave, pravovremenu predaju seminarskog rada i obvezno polaganje 2 kolokvija. Seminarski rad nosi 35% ocjene, dva kolokvija 50% i ostali elementi kontinuirane provjere znanja 15% zaključne ocjene iz kolegija. Za prolaz na kolegiju nužno je zadovoljiti sve elemente kontinuirane provjere znanja.
Točni termin 1. kolokvija utvrđuje se u dogovoru sa studentima. Raspodjela tema za seminarske radove je u 8. tjednu.

Sadržaj kolegija po tjednima
1. tjedan
Uvod u stvaranje nacije: kolonijalna i postkolonijalna povijest Australije: pregled ključnih događaja
2. tjedan
Povijesni pregled: nastavak
Alternativne povijesti: disemiNacija
Homi K. Bhabha: “DissemiNation: Time, narrative and the margins of modern nations” in The Location of Culture
Benedict Anderson. “Introduction” in Imagined Communities
Uvođenje ključne terminologije iz Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts
3. tjedan
DisemiNacije sadašnjosti i prošlosti
Michel Foucault.  “Of Other Spaces” u Heterotopia and the City
John Marsden and Shaun Tan. The Rabbits (1998)
Shaun Tan. The Arrival.  (2006) (grafički roman)
Bruce Sterling. “Slipstream 2” u Science Fiction Studies
4. tjedan
The Arrival: nastavak
Chasing Asylum (2016) dokumentarac iz serijala BBC4 Storyville, red.  Eva Orner
5. tjedan
DisemiNacija budućnosti
The Rover (2014) dir. David Michôd
6. tjedan
DisemiNacija suvremene “australštine”:  nova australska srednja klasa
Christos Tsiolkas. The Slap (2009)
7. tjedan
The Slap nastavak
8. tjedan
Prvi kolokvij (45min)
Uvod u aboridžinsku Australiju: predkolonijalno-kolonijalno-postkolonijalno-neokolonijalno razdoblje: pregled
9. tjedan
Uvod u aboridžinsku Australiju: nastavak
Contact (2009) dokumentarac
Cannibal Story (2013) kratki animirani film
Christine Nicholls. “‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’ – an introduction” (2014)
Christine Nicholls. “Dreaming and place – Aboriginal monsters and their meanings” (2014)
10. tjedan
DisemiNacija suvremene aboridžinalnosti: humor i sadašnjica
Gayle Kennedy. Me, Antman & Fleabag (2007)
11. tjedan
DisemiNacija suvremene aboridžinalnosti: humor i trauma
Louis Nowra. Radiance (1993). (drama)
Radiance (1998) red. Rachel Perkins
12. tjedan
DisemiNacija suvremene aboridžinalnostii: humor i preživljavanje
Charlie’s Country (2014) red. Rolf de Heer
13. tjedan
Zaključna rasprava
14. tjedan
Drugi kolokvij (45min)

Fikcija:
John Marsden and Shaun Tan. The Rabbits (1998) (grafički roman)
Shaun Tan. The Arrival (2006) (grafički roman)
Christos Tsiolkas. The Slap (2009) (roman)
Gayle Kennedy. Me, Antman & Fleabag (2007) (roman)
Louis Nowra. Radiance (1993) (drama)

Filmovi:
The Rover (2014) dir. David Michôd
Cannibal Story (2013) kratki animirani film
Radiance (1998) red. Rachel Perkins
Charlie’s Country (2014) red. Rolf de Heer

Dokumentrni filmovi:
Chasing Asylum (2016) red.  Eva Orner
Contact (2009)

Sekundarna literatura (kritička izdanja)
– Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition. London/New York: Verso. 2006. (dijelovi)
– Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin Eds. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. London/New York: Routledge, 2002. (odabrani termini)
– Ashcroft, Bill. “Is Australian Literature Post-Colonial?”.  Modern Australian Criticism and Theory. Eds. David Carter and Wang Guanglin. Qingdao: China Ocean University Press. 2010: 1-13.
– Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge. 2004 (1994) (odabrani dijelovi)
– Holt, Lillian. “Aboriginal humour: A conversational corroboree”. Serious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour. Eds. Fran De Groen and Peter Kirkpatrick, St Lucia, Queensland: UQP, 2009: 81-94.
– Milner Davis, Jessica “ ‘Aussie’ humour and laughter: Joking as an acculturating ritual”. Serious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour. Eds. Fran De Groen and Peter Kirkpatrick, St Lucia, Queensland: UQP, 2009: 31-47.
– Nicholls, Christine. “‘Dreamtime’ and ‘The Dreaming’ – an introduction”. A Year in Life of Australia. The Conversation. Ed. The Conversation, Sydney: Future Leaders. 2014: 77-82.
– Nicholls, Christine. “Dreaming and place – Aboriginal monsters and their meanings”. A Year in Life of Australia. The Conversation. Ed. The Conversation, Sydney: Future Leaders, 2014: 82-91.

Dodatna kritička izdanja:
– Banerjee, Bidisha. “Kinship between ‘companion species’: A posthuman refiguration of the immigrant condition in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival”. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2016: 1-15.
– Casey, Maryrose. “Bold, Black, and Brilliant: Aboriginal Australian Drama”. A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature. Ed. Belinda Wheeler. Rochester, New York: Camden House. 2013: 155-171.
– Farca, Paula Anca. “Humour in Contemporary Adult Fiction.” A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature. Ed. Belinda Wheeler. Rochester, New York: Camden House. 2013: 125-138.
– Verevis, Constantine. “ ‘Whose side are you on?’ The Slap (2011/2015)”, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 29:5, 2015: 769-779.
– Ommundsen, Wenche. “Work in Progress: Multicultural Writing in Australia”. Modern Australian Criticism and Theory. Eds. David Carter and Wang Guanglin. Qingdao: China Ocean University Press, 2010: 243-257.
– Sterling Bruce. “Slipstream 2”. Science Fiction Studies, 38:1, 2011: 6-10.

Svi tekstualni i audiovizualni materijali dobivaju se u elektroničkom obliku.

Dr. Aidan O’Malley, visiting lecturer
Subject: Modern literature
Course title: Contemporary Irish Literature and Culture: Playing with the Past
ECTS credits: 6
Language: English
Duration: 1 semester, 8th and 10th (2015)
Status: elective
Course type: lectures, seminars

Overview

This course examines a selection of the most important Irish literary and filmic texts of the last 30-40 years. At the heart of this module is an examination of how these texts play with and disrupt conceptions of the Irish past (and, indeed, of history itself). This process of unsettlement is viewed primarily from a postcolonial perspective—in terms, that is, of how this engagement with the past reflects upon contemporary Ireland. To facilitate this, students will also be introduced to important essays in the development of postcolonial discourse in Ireland.
With one exception, the novels to be examined are placed at the end of this course in order to allow time for these to be read. Students intending to take this module should immediately acquire and read Flann O’Brien’s novel, The Third Policeman.

A list of suggested secondary readings will be issued in the class.

Course Requirements

• 10-15 minute oral presentation
• Mid-term exam (you are not permitted to answer the question on the text you presented)
• Final exam (you are not permitted to answer the question on the text you presented)
• 2,000 word essay based on your presentation. Plagiarism will result in a fail grade.
• Attendance and participation in class

 Course Outline

1. Introduction to the course: overview of 20^th-century Irish literature and history

2. Documentaries: Peter Lennon (dir.), The Rocky Road to Dublin (1967); Maurice Sweeney (dir.), Flann O’Brien: The Lives of Brian(2006)

3. Rethinking Irish experience in a postcolonial frame: Seamus Deane, Civilians and Barbarians (1983); Declan Kiberd, ‘A New England Called Ireland’ (from Inventing Ireland, 1995)

 

4. Re-performing the past 1: Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman (1967)

5. Re-performing the past 2: Brian Friel, Making History(1989)

6. Re-performing the past 3: Terry Eagleton, Saint Oscar(1989)

7. Re-performing the past 4: Thomas Kilroy, Double Cross (1986)

8. Mid-term Exam

9. Film 1: Neil Jordan(dir.), The Crying Game (1992),The Butcher Boy (1997),Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

10. Film 2: John Crowley (dir.), Intermission (2003); Martin McDonagh (dir.), In Bruges (2008);John Michael McDonagh (dir.), Calvary (2014)

11. Contemporary fiction 1: John McGahern, Amongst Women(1990)

12. Contemporary fiction 2: Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea(2002)

13. Contemporary fiction 3: Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart(2012)

14. Final Exam

 

 

Course title: The History and Paradigms of American Studies 2 (A, 19th c./20th c.)
Instructor: Dr. Jelena Šesnić
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective (obligatory for American Studies majors in the 8th semester)
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the 8th and/or 10th semester

Course description: This course is a companion course to the History and Paradigms of American Studies1 which investigated the origins of the discipline of American Studies. Since the 1970s, however, the discipline undertook to interrogate some of its main premises based on the changing conceptions of U.S. society and the nation-state. Even though the revisionist interventions begin to be felt already in the 1970s, we will posit as a starting point of our inquiry a methodological break observable in the 1980s as „ideology“ becomes a necessary accompaniment of any AS inquiry. The next historical break—the end of the Cold War in 1989—indicates another momentous shift as we follow the developments thereafter. The next point of interest is 9/11 and the way it refocused the work in the discipline. These will demonstrate the efforts by so-called New Americanists to devise contesting models of American culture, while the emphases in their agendas may differ, as our readings will show. In the process of revising American Studies various theories have been made use of, ranging from New Historicism to poststructuralism, to ethnic/ race, feminist and gender studies to Marxism and cultural studies to international/ transnational perspectives. Paralelly, it ought to become evident how each new methodology in the discipline invents, as it were, a new conception of „America“ as its object of study while ur-theories and underlying conceptions in the discipline of AS show great resilience and attest to continuity. The course is obligatory for AS majors.
Course requirements: regular attendance, participation in class discussions, mid-term and final test (continuous assessment), presentation in class, written assignments and a final seminar paper

Syllabus:
Week 1: Laying the ground for (new) American Studies: disciplinary premises and theoretical frameworks (Fluck, L. Marx)
Week 2: Ideology and readings of American artefacts in the 1980s (L. Marx: revision of American pastoralism; Slotkin: revision of the frontier myth)
Week 3: Ideology and readings of American artefacts in the 1980s and beyond: identity approaches (ethnic, race, gender, border, class and religious identities) Tompkins, Morrison
Week 4: Identity approaches (cont.): Lowe, J.D. Saldívar
Week 5: Identity approaches (cont.): Wiegman, Lauter (A short written response.)
Week 6: End of the Cold War and repositionings within the discipline (New Americanists and a new field-imaginary) (Kaplan, Denning)
Week 7: Mid-term test
Week 8: Framing the transnational turn: from national to post-national studies : Armstrong and Tennenhouse, Shapiro, R. Saldívar
Week 9: Framing the transnational turn: imperial, hemispheric and globalist approaches (Walsh, Pease )
Week 10: Post 9/11 and a new state of the discipline: Rowe, Kaplan
Week 11: Post 9/11 and a new state of the discipline: Bayoumi, Enker (A short written response.)
Week 12: Pasts and futures of American Studies: technologies of culture (Lipsitz, Cohen)
Week 13: Pasts and futures of American Studies: post-race (Benn Michaels), class (Lott), religion (Mechling)
Week 14: Pasts and futures of American Studies: space, place and environment (Buell, Dimock) Seminar paper due.
Week 15: Final test; course evaluation.

Readings (expanded list)

-Bercovitch, Sacvan, and Myra Jehlen, eds. Ideology and Classic American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. (selection)
– Castronovo, Russ, and Susan Gillman, eds. States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. (selection)
– Fisher, Phillip. The New American Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. (selection)
– Fluck, Winfried, Donald E. Pease, and John Carlos Rowe, eds. Re-Framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2011. (selection)
-Grgas, Stipe. Američki studiji danas: identitet, kapital, spacijalnost. Zagreb: Meandar, 2015. (selection)
-Pease, Donald, and Robyn Wiegman, eds. The Futures of American Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. (selection)
– Radway, Janice A., Kevin K. Gaines, Barry Shank, and Penny Von Eschen.  American Studies: An Anthology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. (selection)
– Rowe, John Carlos The Cultural Politics of the New American Studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 2012.Open Humanities Press. http://www.scribd.com/doc/132330117/Rowe-The-Cultural-Politics-of-the-New-American-Studies (selection)

 

Dr. Aidan O’Malley, visiting lecturer
Subject: Modern literature
Course title: Contemporary Irish Literature and Culture
ECTS credits: 6
Language:  English
Duration: 1 semester, 8th and 10th
Status: elective
Course type: lectures, seminars

Overview
This course examines a selection of the most important contemporary Irish literary and filmic texts, and frames them in terms of the some of the most significant cultural and political debates that have taken place in the country over the last 30-40 years: the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, the influence of postcolonial discourse, gender and the position of women writers, the language question, immigration and the recent economic crisis.
With one exception, the novels to be examined are placed at the end of this course in order to allow time for these to be read. Students intending to take this module should immediately acquire and read Flann O’Brien’s novel, The Third Policeman.

Course Requirements

• 10-15 minute oral presentation
• Mid-term exam (you are not permitted to answer the question on the text you presented)
• Final exam (you are not permitted to answer the question on the text you presented)
• 2,000 word essay based on your presentation. Plagiarism will result in a fail grade.
• Attendance and participation in class

Course Outline

1. Introduction to the course
2. An Outlier: Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman (1967)
3. Postcolonial Thinking: Seamus Deane, Civilians and Barbarians (1983); Declan Kiberd, ‘A New England Called Ireland’ (from Inventing Ireland, 1995)
4. Northern Ireland 1: Frank McGuinness, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (1985)
5. Northern Ireland 2: Seamus Heaney, selected poems
6. Northern Ireland 3: Brian Friel, Translations (1980)
7. Mid-term exam
8. Irish Women’s Writing 1: Gerardine Meaney, ‘Women and Writing, 1700-1960’, The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol. V, pp. 765-71 (2002); Eavan Boland, ‘Outside History’ (in Object Lessons, 1995)
9. Irish Women’s Writing 2: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, selected poems
10.  Irish Women’s Writing 3: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, selected poems
11.  Irish film: John Ford, dir., The Quiet Man (1952); Martin McDonagh, dir., In Bruges (2008)
12.  Contemporary Irish Fiction 1: John McGahern, Amongst Women (1990)
13.  Contemporary Irish Fiction 2: Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea (2002)
14.  Contemporary Irish Fiction 3: Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart (2012)
    

Final Exam

 

 

Course title: The History and Paradigms of American Studies 2 (Grgas, 2013-14)
Instructor: Stipe Grgas
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the 8th and/or 10th semester
Course description: This course is a companion course to the course History and Paradigms of American Studies1 which investigated the origins of the discipline of American Studies. Its purpose is to explore the developments within the discipline up to the present day. To generalize, the main development since the founding of the discipline has been the questioning of the holistic approach to the object of study and the essentialist conceptualization of the United States. The latter practitioners of the field have reinscribed into the discipline the voices and experiences of those who were left out of the earlier paradigms and have likewise argued for the contextualization of the United States into the global context. The course will not only  review these interventions but will also seek to show how they have been attended by an engagement with different theories, from poststructuralism, gender studies  to Marxism.
The course is obligatory for American Studies majors.
Course requirements: regular attendance, participation in class discussions, written assignments and a final seminar paper. At the end of the course the students will be given a written exam.
Sylalbus:
The course will begin by describing how the so-called New Americanists challenged the prevailing methodology and reigning orthodoxies of the so-called „myth and symbol school“. It will be shown how the socio-political realities of the sixties impinged upon the agenda of the discipline and forced it to take cognizance of the heterogeneity of American society and address issues of race, ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, regional specificity and to a lesser degree class. The second group of themes that the course will take up will deal with the transnational turn in American studies which targets the role the US has played on the global scene excavating the history of American imperialism, the contact zones and borders established throughout this history. The final cluster of issues that the course will take up will attempt to map the present state of the discipline and the way it has attempted to come to an understanding of contemporary American policies, developments within the US and how these have impacted upon our world.
Readings (alternations possible)
– «American Studies at a Crossroad: A Conversation with Donald Pease, Roby Wiegman and John Smelcer» http://ragazine.cc/2011/12/discourse-american-studies/
– Bronner, Simon J. «American Studies: A Discipline». Encyclopedia of American Studies, ed. Simon J. Bronner (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2012), s.v. „American Studies: a Discipline“ (by Simon J. Brooner), http://eas-ref.press.jhu.edu/view?aid=809 (accessed August 17, 2012).
– Castronovo, Russ and Susan Gillman 2009. States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 1-54.
– Denning, Michael 1986. „’The Special American Conditions’: Marxism and American Studies“, American Quarterly, vol.38.no.3 (1986): 356-380.
– Fisher, Phillip 1991. The New American Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
– Grgas, Stipe 2013. „American Studies and the Canonization of Thomas Pynchon“. journal-borderlands . serbianamericanstudies.rs
– Radway, Janice A., Kevin K. Gaines, Barry Shank and Penny Von Eschen  2009. American Studies: An Anthology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. (selection)
– Rowe, John Carlos 2012. The Cultural Politics of the New American Studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library. Open Humanities Press. http://www.scribd.com/doc/132330117/Rowe-The-Cultural-Politics-of-the-New-American-Studies
– Shapiro, Stephen 2001. „Reconfiguring American Studies?: The Paradoxes of Postnationalism“. 49th Parallel: An Interdisciplinary Journal of North American Studies. Issue 8/ Summer 2001.

In addition to these theoretical texts the course will understake a reading of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland focusing upon the issue how the author in this text prefigures the present moment of the United States.

 

Dr Jelena Šesnić

Literary Seminar (MA Level): The History and Paradigms of American Studies 2

Spring 2012

---

 Syllabus
Course description: This is a companion course to the History and Paradigms of American Studies 1 which thus continues to examine the changes in the methodology of American Studies since the 1970s. Major developments in this respect are poststructuralist theory, new historicism, feminist and gender studies (from Marxism to psychoanalysis), ethnic, postcolonial and border studies, transnational turn and cultural studies. These approaches will be exemplified by representative scholarly essays and tested in turn on the appropriate primary texts. The course is obligatory for American studies majors (8^th semester); elective for all other MA students.

 

Course requirements: regular attendance; participation in class discussion; in-class and home assignments; oral presentation (10 min); 2 seminar papers (6-7  pp./ ca 2000-2500 words each + bibliography); final test (mandatory, non-negotiable, continuous assessment). Grade break-down: Seminar papers 50 %; final test 30 %; the rest 20 %.

 

Readings (alterations possible):

 

Primary texts

1. Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-2; selected chapters)

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefVirg.html

(E-text centre, U of Virginia Library)

2. Lenora Sansay: Secret History, or The Horrors of St. Domingo (1808)

3. Edgar Allan Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/silverman/poe/frame.html

(American Studies at the UVa)

4. Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1845; selected chapters)

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walden/index.html

(American Transcendentalism on the Web)

5. Herman Melville: „Benito Cereno“ (from The Piazza Tales, 1856)

http://www.esp.org/books/melville/piazza/contents/cereno.html

6. Harriet Prescott Spofford: „Amber Gods“ (1863)

http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/beads.html

7. Sandra Cisneros: „Woman Hollering Creek“ (1991)

 

Syllabus (alterations possible)

 

March 

Week 1: Introduction: European vs US Americanists; perspectives, focus and methods:

Chenetier, Fluck, Pease

Week 2: from national to imperial American studies (Aravamudan)

Week 3: Poststructuralism: Thoreau, Walden (Benn Michaels)

Week 4: Thoreau, Walden; towards New Historicism (Michael Gilmore)

April

Week 1: New Historicism: text and contexts; Bercovitch and the American Renaissance

Week 2: New Historicism and the “New Americanists”: EA Poe: Pym (D. Pease)

Week 3: New Historicism: EA Poe, cont.

Week 4: New Historicism into transnational American studies: Herman Melville: “Benito Cereno” (Sundquist, Warren)

Week 5:  De-centring American studies: ethnic studies; Jefferson, Notes (Erkkila)

May

Week 1: Jefferson, Notes (cont.)

Week 2: Feminist criticism and the canon: Baym; Harriet Prescott Spofford: “Amber Gods”

Week 3: Feminist into gender studies; border studies: Anzaldúa; Cisneros

Week 4:  Is there a transnational American studies? Leonora Sansay: Secret History, or The Horrors of St. Domingo

June

Week 1: Transnational American studies: Sansay, cont.

Week 2: American Studies and cultural studies: is there a method? Guest lecturer: Dr. Sven Cvek (American Studies Program, Zagreb)

Final test.

 

Relevant Internet sources:

EAAS web-site (European Association for American Studies): see links

ASA web-site (American Studies Association): see links

ALA (American Literature Association): see links

MLA (Modern Languages Association): see links

MELUS (US-based) and MESEA (European-based): see links

American Studies Journals on the Web

Full-text journal databases: J-stor, Project Muse, EBSCO, Oxford Journals, Blackwell, etc.

 

List of journals:

American Literary History; American Quarterly (ASA); American Literature (ALA)

PMLA (MLA)

European Journal of American Studies (e-journal, EAAS; see other national AS associations)

New Literary History; Boundary 2; Representations

MELUS

The Transnational Journal of American Studies (e-journal)

The 49th Parallel (e-journal)

Neo-Americanist (e-journal)

Naziv kolegija: Amerikanističke teme 2: American Non-Fiction Writing, 1580-1880
Nastavnik: dr. sc. Douglas Ambrose, red. prof. (Fulbright gost profesor)
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Strajanje: jedan semestar, 8. semestar
Status: izborni
Uvjet za upis kolegija:  upisan 8. semestar

COURSE PURPOSE: This course provides an introduction to American history through various forms of non-fiction writing.  Beginning with sixteenth-century English accounts of the New World, we will explore the development of certain themes and genres that came to characterize American non-fiction, including the jeremiad, the captivity narrative, social and physical mobility, “manifest destiny” and providentialism, the slave narrative, nature writing, and the promise of “the west.”  We will follow a chronological narrative through American history, recognizing throughout the political and social contexts of the texts while paying close attention to the internal development of the genres to which they belong. 

COURSE STRUCTURE:  Students must complete the readings for the week prior to our Monday meetings.  Each Monday meeting will begin with a brief quiz on that week’s materials.  Each student must bring the week’s readings to class each week.  Although I will occasionally lecture in order to situate the texts, class discussion of the readings will constitute the bulk of our meetings.  A successful class requires the participation of all students.  Attendance, therefore, counts.  Students may miss two classes without penalty. 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:  In addition to regular attendance, preparation, and participation, students will write four short papers (500-750 words each) and one longer paper (2500 words).  Beginning with Week 2 and continuing for every subsequent week through week 14, I will provide a question at the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting.  Students will pick four of these questions to write on.  Papers are always due the following Monday.  I will not accept any late papers, so choose wisely.  For the final paper, the student will choose one of the genres we will focus on, read at least two secondary sources on and two additional primary sources from that genre, and write a paper that examines the historical and literary meanings of those texts. Final papers are due not later than 16:00 on 14 June.

Course schedule:
Week 1: Envisioning America.  Read Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588/1590).
Week 2: Planting a “New England.” John Cotton, “God’s Promise to His Plantation” (1630); John Winthrop, “Model of Christian Charity” (1630).
Week 3: Exhorting America: The Jeremiad and its Meanings.  Read Samuel Danforth, New England’s Errand into the Wilderness (1670); Increase Mather, An Exhortation To the Inhabitants of New England (1676).
Week 4: Captivity, Identity, and Redemption.  Read Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682).
Week 5: The Beginnings of “American” History.  Read Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702); Robert Beverly, The History and Present State of Virginia (1705).
Week 6: Becoming American.  Read Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (1791).
Week 7: The Transformation of Political Discourse.  Read Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776); Samuel Sherwood, “The Church’s Flight into the Wilderness” (1776).
Week 8: Explaining America. Hector St. John de Crevecour, Letters From an American Farmer (1782): Read “Advertisement and Dedication,” Letter I, Letter III, and Letter IX; Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787): Read “Front Matter,” Query 8, Query 11, Query 14, and Query 17.
Week 9: Exploring America.  For William Bartram, Travels (1791), read Part IV, Chapters  I-VI; For Lewis and Clark, Journals (1814), read July 30, 1804; August 25, 1804; September 24 & 25, 1804; October 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12, 1804; October 27, 1804; October 29, 1804; October 31, 1804; November 4, 1804.
Week 10: Creating an American Identity.  Read Noah Webster, “On the Education of Youth in America” (1788); Fisher Ames, “American Literature” (1803), on Omega.
Week 11: American Destiny.  Read Lyman Beecher, A Plea for the West (1832); John L. O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity” (1839).
Week 12: The Beginnings of African American Political Writing. Read David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.
Week 13: Narrating American Slavery and American Freedom. Read William Wells Brown, Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847); Josiah Henson, The Life of Josiah Henson . . . (1849).
Week 14: The “Other America”: The South. Read James Henley Thornwell, “The Christian Doctrine of Slavery” (1850); Louisa McCord, “Woman and Her Needs” (1852); George Fitzhugh, “Southern Thought” (1857), on Omega.
Week 15: A New Birth: Postbellum America. Read Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address” (1865); Horace Bushnell, “Our Obligations to the Dead” (1865) on Omega; Frederick Douglass, “What the Black Man Wants” (1865); and “Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln” (1876)

 

Naziv kolegija: Kulturni aspekti američkog neoliberalizma
Nositelj: dr. sc. Stipe Grgas, red. prof.
Nastavnik: dr. sc. Sven Cvek, docent
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Trajanje: 1 semestar
Status: Izborni
Oblik nastave: 1 sat predavanja i 2 sata seminara na tjedan
Uvjeti za upis kolegija: Upisan diplomski studij
Obaveze studenta: aktivno i redovito sudjelovanje u radu seminara; pismeni kolokviji kao način kontinuirane evaluacije; seminarski rad.
Sadržaj: Krećući od pretpostavke o neodvojivosti ekonomske, političke i kulturne sfere, kolegij nudi pregled glavnih društvenih procesa povezanih s razvojem neoliberalizma u SAD-u. Povijesni okvir kolegija omeđen je krizama 1973. i 2008. godine, odnosno postupnim okretanjem od keynesianske politike i usponom neoklasične ekonomije i ideja Čikaške škole od 1970ih do danas. Tematski, kolegij obuhvaća cjeline koje neoliberalizam stavljaju u odnos prema: liberalizmu, neokonzervativizmu, problematici prostora, demokratskoj politici, radu i trenucima krize. Naglasak je kolegija na kulturnim aspektima neoliberalizma, pa će se navedene teme obrađivati prvenstveno, ali ne isključivo, na književnom i filmskom korpusu.
Cilj: Upoznavanje studenata s razvojem neoliberalizma u SAD-u; kritičko promišljanje povijesnih procesa; upoznavanje s relevantnom kritičkom literaturom.

Literatura:
Primarna (izbor):
Jonathan Franzen, The 27th City
Bonnie Jo Campbell, The American Salvage
Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis
Po Bronson, Bombardiers

Izbor filmova i serija:
Harlan County U.S.A. (Barbara Kopple, 1976)
Blue Collar (Paul Schrader, 1978)
Roger and Me (Michael Moore, 1989)
Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987)
Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins, 1992)
Office Space (Mike Judge, 1999)
The Wire (David Simon, 2002-08)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006)
Generation Kill (Ed Burns, David Simon, Evan Wright, 2008)
Sleep Dealer (Alex Rivera, 2008)
Frozen River (Courtney Hunt, 2008)
Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, 2011)
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor, 2011)
In Time (Andrew Niccol, 2011)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)
The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015)
UnREAL (Marti Noxon, Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, 2015)

Sekundarna:
– Nikhil Pal Singh, “Liberalism,” u Keywords for American Cultural Studies, ur. Bruce Burgett i Glenn Hendler, New York and London: NYU Press, 2007: 139-44.
– Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. (izbor)
– David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 2007. (izbor)
– Jane L. Collins, Micaela di Leonardo and Brett Williams, ur. New Landscapes of Inequality: Neoliberalism and the Erosion of Democracy in America, Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008. (izbor)
– Wendy Brown, “American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization,” Political Theory, Vol. 34, No. 6 (Dec., 2006), pp. 690-714.
– Jodi Melamed, “The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to Neoliberal Multiculturalism,” Social Text, 89, Vol. 24, No. 4, Winter 2006.

Dopunska:
– Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 (1962).
– Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007. (izbor).
– Paul Krugman, “For Richer,” The New York Times, October 20, 2002.
– Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. (izbor).
– Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005. (izbor).

Graduate Elective
American Gothic
University of Zagreb
Spring 2012, 8th and 10th semester
Prof. Charles L. Crow
charleslcrow@yahoo.com

Thursday 2:00-2:45, A-123
Friday 11:00-12:30, A-105

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?  The Shadow knows.”
The Shadow — old time radio show

Course requirements:  regular attendance and participation in discussion.  A paper of about 12 pages, written as a conference paper.  Final examination.
Note 1:  The syllabus below may be modified as the pace and needs of the class indicate.
Note 2:  Most readings can be found on-line.  In a few cases I will provide texts that may be duplicated.

Week 1:  8-9 March.
Introduction to the Gothic.
Cotton Mather, Trials of Martha Carrier and G. B., “A Notable Exploit; Wherein, Dux FaeminaFacti” [The Narrative of Hannah Dustan].
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Alice Doan’s Appeal”

Week 2: 15-16 March
Loomings
“Abraham Panther,” “A Surprising Account of the Discovery of a Lady “
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, from Letters from an American Farmer, Letter IX
Charles Brockden Brown, “Somnambulism”
 John Neal, “Idiosyncrasies”
Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 

Week 3:  22-23 March
    The Dark Romantics I
    Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”
    Herman Melville, “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” “The Bell Tower,”  BenitoCereno.

Week 4:  29-30 March
     The Dark Romantics II (Poe Festival)
     “Hop-Frog,”   “The Cask of Amontillado,””The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Raven,” “The City in the Sea,” “Ulalume,” “Annabel Lee,” “Dream-Land.”

Week 5: 5-6 April
          Retrospective New England Gothic
          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Skeleton in Armor.”
          Harriet Prescott Spofford, “Circumstance.”

          (April 6 is Good Friday)

Week 6: 12-13 April
         Gothic Women I
         Louisa May Alcott, “A Whisper in the Dark”
         Emily Dickinson,  “Through lane it lay – through bramble,” “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,””‘Tis so appalling – it exhilarates”, “The Soul Has Bandaged Moments,
        “”One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted,” “‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,””If I may have it, when it’s dead,” “What mystery pervades a well!” 

Week 7:  19-20 April
             Gothic of Race
             Folk tale, “Talking Bones”
             Charles Chesnutt, “The Sheriff’s Children,” “The Dumb Witness,” “The Marked Tree.”
             Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Lynching of Jube Benson” 
             Alice Dunbar Nelson, “Sister Josepha”
            Grace King, “The Little Convent Girl”

 Week 8: 26-27 April
                  Some haunted houses:
                   Madeline Yale Wynne, “The Little Room”
                   Elia Wilkinson Peattie, “The House that Was Not”
                   Henry James, The Turn of the Screw     

Week 9: 3-4 May

            Some weird tales:
            Edith Wharton, “The Eyes”
            Ambrose Bierce, “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” “The Death of HalpinFrayser.”
            Robert W. Chambers, “In the Court of the Dragon.”
            H. P. Lovecraft, “The Stranger”       

Week 10:  10-11 May.

              Gothic of the village:
              Stephen Crane, “The Monster”
              Poems by E. A. Robinson,:””LukeHavergal”, “Lisette and Eileen,””The Dark House.” “The Mill,” “Souvenir,” “Why He Was There.”
               Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery.”

 Week 11: 17-18 May.

Gothic Women II
 Kate Chopin, “Désireé’s Baby,”
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “Luella Miller,”  “Old Woman Magoun”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall Paper”
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily’

 Week 12:  24-25 May.Modern and contemporary works, chosen by the class.

Week 13: 31 May-1 June.Modern and contemporary works, chosen by the class.

 Week 14:  8 June  (June 7 is Corpus Christi day)

Discuss John Sayles’s film, Lone Star.

(više…)