Cultures and Countercultures: The American Novel after World War II
Spring 2010 ENGL 0610H S01
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Instructor: Drayton Nabers III
Please check the Detailed Class Information for up to date information about this course.
Information on meeting times for this course can be found on Course Schedule at http://selfservice.brown.edu
Course Description
A study of the postwar American novel in the context of the intellectual history of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. We will read the postwar novel in relation to the affluent society, the vital center, the lonely crowd, the power elite, the one-dimensional man, the post-industrial society. Authors to be considered include Baldwin, Bellow, Ellison, Highsmith, McCarthy, O'Connor, Petry, Pynchon, and Roth. Two lectures and one discussion meeting weekly. Students should register for ENGL 0610H s01 and may be assigned to conference sections by the instructor during the first week of class.
Instructor's Description
This course surveys the history of the American novel from 1945 to the early 1970s. By carefully situating the postwar novel in the broader context of Cold War American intellectual history, we will chart the gradual emergence of postmodernism as a significant force in American literary life and measure the shifting and competitive relations between the novel and other forms of social description and commentary in the 1950s and 1960s. Four sets of interrelated questions will command our attention and organize our discussions. 1. The 1950s have often been characterized as a time of affluence, complacency, and consensus. The 1960s have just as frequently been characterized as a time of turbulence, insecurity, and disagreement. What is the basis for these characterizations, and what is at stake (politically, socially, economically) in making them? 2. Do the novels of the 1950s and 1960s concur in the standard judgments about 1950s and 1960s? What role, if any, does the novel play in reinforcing or challenging the terms of postwar American social, economic and political life? 3. What distinguishes the postmodernist novel of the late 1960s from the late-modernist novel of the early 1950s? Do any other features of American intellectual life undergo a similar transformation? In what ways do novelists begin to reconceptualize the function of the novel in the period? 4. How does the greatly expanded role of the university in American life after World War II affect the history of the novel? How do novelists represent the university and articulate its new salience and significance? How does the gradual assimilation of literary production to university writing programs alter the ambitions and the orientation of novelists in the 1950s and 1960s?
In addressing these questions, we will develop a set of interpretive techniques for grasping the complex interaction between literary history and social change in Cold War America. If all goes well, by the end of the semester you will have a strong grasp on both the ways in which novelists represented the changing contours of postwar social life and the ways in which those changing contours themselves transformed and reshaped the nature of novelistic production in the 1950s and 1960s.
Assignments and Grading
The course requirements are simple. You must write four very short (three-page) response papers (45% of the final grade) and complete one take-home examination at the end of the term (35% of the final grade). You must also show up at each class session ready to participate in a vigorous discussion of the assigned material (20% of the final grade).