Unit American Literature II
- Course
- Foreign languages and cultures
- Study-unit Code
- A002631
- Curriculum
- In all curricula
- Teacher
- Mirella Vallone
- Teachers
-
- Mirella Vallone
- Hours
- 54 ore - Mirella Vallone
- CFU
- 9
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2021
- Offered
- 2022/23
- Learning activities
- Caratterizzante
- Area
- Letterature straniere
- Academic discipline
- L-LIN/11
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- "Citizens of somewhere else": literature, history, and imagination in Hawthorne, James, and Dickinson
The course will examine the contribution of three canonical American authors to the birth and development of national literature. In particular, it will analyze their relationship with the past, contemporary society, power, female desire, and the explorations and experiments they carry out of their means of expression lived as an instrument of epistemological research in continuous tension between reality, imagination, and desire.
The narrative and poetic texts under examination will be analyzed in their genre specificity and relation to their historical, cultural, and political context. The course will alternate lectures with seminars and require students' active participation. - Reference texts
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady.
Henry James, Literary Criticism.
Emily Dickinson, Poems.
Texts of literary criticism, supporting the analysis of literary texts, will be included in the reading list at the beginning of the course. - Educational objectives
- At the end of the course students should be able 1. to interpret literature as it relates to its historical, social, and cultural context; 2. to translate the literary works studied and perform a formal text analysis; 3. to comment on the literary works and debate the issues of the course with an appropriate critical language.
- Prerequisites
- Knowledge of elements of a literary analysis and of the origins of American literature.
- Teaching methods
- Lectures and seminars.
- Learning verification modality
- Oral examination on the texts and issues of the course, aimed to test 1. the comprehension of the texts studied and of their contexts; 2. the ability to apply knowledge; 3. the ability to communicate effectively and with appropriate critical language.
- Extended program
- "Citizens of somewhere else": literature, history, and imagination in Hawthorne, James, and Dickinson
The course will examine the contribution of three canonical American authors to the birth and development of national literature. In particular, it will analyze their relationship with the past, contemporary society, power, female desire, and the explorations and experiments they carry out of their means of expression lived as an instrument of epistemological research in continuous tension between reality, imagination, and desire.
The narrative and poetic texts under examination will be analyzed in their genre specificity and relation to their historical, cultural, and political context. The course will alternate lectures with seminars and require students' active participation.