Course code

GRA6314.HT

old course code

Course title in Estonian

Ameerika kirjandus

Course title in English

American Literature

ECTS credits

6.0

approximate amount of contact lessons

56

Teaching semester

autumn

Assessment form

Examination

lecturer of 2020/2021  Autumn semester

Paul Rüsse (inglise keel) tavaline kursus

lecturer of 2020/2021  Spring semester

lecturer not assigned

Course aims

To give an overview of the history of American literature from the Colonial period to the present.

Brief description of the course

The Colonial period and the notion of the American Dream. The role of the frontier. Enlightenment. Romanticism and transcendentalism. Abolitionist literature. Realism and naturalism. The impact of the two world wars. Various manifestations of modernism and postmodernism: the Lost Generation; the literary renaissance of the American South; beatniks; the impact of mass culture; science fiction; the historical and feminist novel; black humour; the flourishing of ethnic and ecological fiction.

Learning outcomes in the course

Studens are
• aware of the peculiarities of American literary periods and their main facts;
• able to place texts within relevant historical and cultural contexts and compare them with texts from other literary traditions.

Teacher

Paul Rüsse

Replacement literature

Bercovitch, S. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Malden: Blackwell, 2004.
Parini, Jay, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.