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

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 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: Arhitekst u postmodernoj britanskoj književnosti
(do ak. god. 2016/17)
Nastavnica: dr. sc. Vanja Polić, doc.
ECTS-bodovi: 6
Jezik: engleski
Trajanje: 7. ili 9. semestar
Status: izborni kolegij
Oblik nastave: 1 sat predavanja, 2 sata seminara tjedno
Uvjeti za upis kolegija: upisan 7. ili 9. semestar
Opis kolegija: Kolegij nudi uvid u postmoderni britanski roman s posebnim fokusom na dijalog koji postmoderna književnost uspostavlja s kanonskim djelima britanske književnosti. Studenti će biti upoznati s različitim definicijama postmodernizma (stil ili period) te s  ključnim konceptima s kojima se postmodernizam hvata u koštac poput pitanja tradicije, povijesti, subjektiviteta i politike. Također će se promatrati taktike kojima odabrani romanopisci pribjegavaju da bi propitivali osnovne postavke modernizma, strategije kao što su parodija, pastiš, ironija, heteroglosija, dijalogičnost. Arhitekst u naslovu kolegija odnosi se na Genetteov „naziv“ za žanrove, to jest na različite trajnije veze između određenog načina izričaja (poput pripovijedanja) i određenih tematskih pitanja. Proučavanjem arhiteksta Genette stiže do poetike, pa će tako kolegij u konačnici nastojati artikulirati poetiku postmodernog britanskog romana.

Cilj: upoznati studente s postmodernim britanskim romanom i poetikom postmodernizma; osvijestiti kontinuitet razvoja britanske književnosti kroz intertekstualnost, preispisivanje i oslanjanje novijih književnih tekstova na starije kanonske tekstove.

Studentske obveze: Ispunjavanje elemenata kontinuirane provjere znanja, koji se sastoje od redovitog pohađanje nastave (maks. 4 izostanka), pripreme za nastavu, sudjelovanja na nastavi, pisanje kraćih zadaća; polaganja teorijskog kolokvija i pravovremene predaje seminarskog rada. Kolokvij čini 35 %, seminarski rad 40%, a ostali elementi kontinuirane provjere znanja 25% ocjene. Za prolaznu ocjenu nužno je ispuniti sve elemente kontinuirane provjere znanja.

Sadržaj kolegija po tjednima:

1. tjedan: opći uvod u modernizam; osnovne teorije postmodernizma
2. tjedan: teorija arhiteksta (G. Genette)
3. tjedan: M. Cunningham The Hours – povijesna kontekstualizacija predloška V. Woolf Mrs. Dalloway i suvremeni intertekstualni odmaci u The Hours
4. tjedan: M. Cunningham, The Hours – nastavak analize
5. tjedan: Will Self, Dorian – esteticizam i dekadencija predloška (O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray) i hiperteksta
6. tjedan: Will Self, Dorian – nastavak analize
7. tjedan: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels  i britansko 18. stoljeće kao hipotekst postmodernog romana
8. tjedan: Kolokvij
Osnove akademskog pisma (smjernice za pisanje seminarskog rada)
9. tjedan: Michael Coetzee, Foe – pseudofeminističko i postkolonijalno preispisivanje Robinsona Crusoea
10. tjedan: Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman – Gulliver’s Travels kao hipotekst – rekonstrukcija Gulliverova mogućeg svijeta iz 4. putovanja
11. tjedan: Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman – nastavak analize
12. tjedan: Alasdair Gray, Poor Things ili postmodernistički Frankenstein M. Shelley
13. tjedan: Alasdair Gray, Poor Things – nastavak analize
14. tjedan: zaključna rasprava

Literatura
Primarna literatura

– Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
– Michael Coetzee, Foe
– Michael Cunningham, The Hours
– Alasdair Gray, Poor Things
– Will Self, Dorian

Sekundarna literatura
– Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, Routledge, 1987
– Mark Currie (ur.), Metafiction, Longman, 1995 (izbor)
– Gérard Genette, The Architext: An Introduction, Regents of University of California, 1992
– Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, Routledge, 1988
– Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Verso, 1991
– Jean-François Lyotard, “” An Answer to the Question, What is the Postmodern?” u The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, U of Minnesota P, 1984
– Simon Malpas, The Postmodern, Routledge (the new critical idiom) 2005

Svi književni i kritički tekstovi bit će dostupni studentima upisanim u kolegij u elektroničkom obliku. Dodatni materijali dobivaju se na satu.