Unit AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
- Course
- Languages, comparative literatures and intercultural translation
- Study-unit Code
- A000186
- Curriculum
- Lingue e letterature
- Teacher
- Mirella Vallone
- Teachers
-
- Mirella Vallone
- Hours
- 36 ore - Mirella Vallone
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2021
- Offered
- 2022/23
- Learning activities
- Affine/integrativa
- Area
- Attività formative affini o integrative
- Academic discipline
- L-LIN/11
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- English
- Contents
- Trauma and Literary Imagination in Contemporary American Literature
The course, starting from a historical and theoretical overview of trauma studies, will examine the literary representation of trauma, exploring the relationship between history, trauma, and memory. A laceration in the mental experience of time, the Self, and the world, trauma will be analyzed as an "enigma of survival" as well. The course will focus on the centrality of the body in the experience of trauma and on the role of language and art in working through it. Students will also reflect on the related vulnerability, relationality, and ethics issues. - Reference texts
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Refugees.
Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History.
Cathy Caruth (ed.), Trauma: Explorations in Memory.
Judith Butler, Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence.
Dori Laub and Daniel Podell, Art and Trauma. - Educational objectives
- At the end of the course students should be able 1. to understand the evolution of the concept of trauma in relation to literary studies; 2. to interpret literature as it relates to its historical, social, and cultural context and perform a formal and critical analysis of the literary texts studied; 3. to comment on the literary works and debate the issues of the course with an appropriate critical language.
- Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of American history and 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
- Trauma and Literary Imagination in Contemporary American Literature
The course, starting from a historical and theoretical overview of trauma studies, will examine the literary representation of trauma, exploring the relationship between history, trauma, and memory. A laceration in the mental experience of time, the Self, and the world, trauma will be analyzed as an "enigma of survival" as well. The course will focus on the centrality of the body in the experience of trauma and on the role of language and art in working through it. Students will also reflect on the related vulnerability, relationality, and ethics issues.