English 350-309-001
American Literature: 1940 to the Present
Instr:
Cam Tatham
Office:
CRT 392 229-3504
e-mail:
ctatham@uwm.edu
Office hours: by appointment
Course Information:
MW 9:30-10:45 BUS S220
Course Description
Required Texts:
Saul Bellow, Herzog
John Updike, Rabbit, Run
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
Toni Morrison, Beloved
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Lily James, High Drama in Fabulous Toledo
J.D. McClatchy, ed. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry
Requirements:
Assigned reading, to be completed by the first class dealing with each
text. Regular attendance (no more than two cuts allowed). Participation:
you should come to each class prepared to discuss your various thoughts
and feelings about the readings – you may be called on at any time. Either
18 pages of polished critical analysis (split up in any way that feels
appropriate to you – e.g., 1 eighteen page paper, or 2 nine page papers,
or 3 six page papers, etc.); revisions allowed and expected. Or a reading
journal in which you record your reactions to each text, to class discussion,
and to the various ways in which the texts and discussion intersect with
your own experience. All written work to be handed in by the last day of
classes. Also: you will be expected to participate in an online Discussion
Forum, posting at least twice each week.
Grade:
attendance + class participation = 20%; participation in online Discussion
Forum = 20%; written work = 60%.
Description:
This course will trace, through various genres, certain of the major
concerns in post WWII American literature, especially the relationship
between shifting concepts of the personal ‘self’ and a collective identity,
be it racial and/or cultural. Changing attitudes toward and interrogations
of the masculine, the feminine, relationships, community, and so on will
be explored in all these writers. The question of the formation of ‘the
canon’ is currently an important issue, and we shall be studying a deliberately
diverse group of writers who are part of or outside the mainstream of American
literature – e.g., the Nobel Laureate and thoroughly canonized Saul Bellow
and the very young and just beginning novelist, Lily James. We shall take
up questions of style, also, from the elegant realism of Updike, to the
folk-oriented lyricism of Silko and Morrison, to the postmodern experimentation
of O’Brien and James. The poetry, too, will represent these issues
and styles through a variety of voices, from the beats to the present day.
