Dr Jelena Šesnić
Literary Seminar (MA): History and Memory in the Contemporary American Novel (A/ 20) Spring 2026
Course schedule: Mon, 10.15-11.45 (A-105); Wed, 13.15-14.00 (A-105)
Office: B-018
Phone: 01-4092060
E-mail: jsesnic@m.ffzg.hr
Office hours: Mon, 12.00-13.00; Thur 10.00-11.00
Course description: The twentieth century has often been seen as a period overdetermined by memory, but also described as the traumatic century. Contemporary American literature (the late 20th and early 21st c.) responds to both these designations in specific ways, primarily by going back to overwhelming episodes or themes from national and global history. The artefacts considered in the seminar vary from the postmodern historical novels to the political and graphic novels, and films, while they take up, in turn, slavery, minority or ethnic histories, major political events, the Americanization/globalization of the Holocaust, and the intersection of human and natural histories.
We shall consider the ways in which the selected novels and other artefacts enact viable models of individual and collective memory, especially in view of the contributions by sociological theories of memory (Halbwachs, Nora, Eyerman); political sciences (Anderson, Connerton); psychoanalytic/psychological notions of memory and trauma (Freud, van der Kolk); and their applications in critical theory and American studies (Assmann, Caruth, LaCapra, Hirsch).
Primary texts: Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979; novel); Miloš Forman: Ragtime (1981; film); Art Spiegelman: Maus I & II (1986, 1991; graphic novel); Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005; novel); James McBride: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (2023; novel); Denis Johnson: Train Dreams (2011; novella)
Requirements: regular attendance, participation in class discussions (10%); tests (midterm and final; continuous assessment, mandatory; 50%); in-class and home assignments (40%).