Course title: Contemporary American Novel
Instructor: Prof. Stipe Grgas
ECTS credits: 6
Status: elective
Semester: 3rd and 5th or 4th and 6th
Enrollment requirements: enrollment in the 3rd and 5th or 4th and 6th semester
Course description: The course explores a number of novels which have been published since 9/11. The argument for targeting this body of texts derives from the notion that the contemporary or the “now” of the United States dates from this event. The course attempts to describe the form of the novel in contemporary US writing, the manner in which it reflects the present moment in US history and the way it engages the challenges of present reality.
Objectives: The purpose of the course is to develop the student’s ability to approach literary texts and to broaden their perspectives on the complexity of US reality.
Course requirements: continual attendance, oral presentation, written assignment, written final exam
Week by week schedule: the event, the present, 9/11 and its representations, American myths and their literary representations, the new regionalism, the city and capital, the sense of the ending
Reading:
John Barth, The book of Ten Nights and a Night
Don DeLillo, Falling Man
Jonathan Foer, Extremely Loud &Incredibly Close
Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
DeLillo, Cosmopolis
Cormac Mc Carthy, The Road