Description
This module is especially designed for postgraduate students exploring potential research areas in the School of English. It is highly recommended for students on the American Literature Pathway and for those thinking about pursuing a PhD in American Literature or a related field. We will cover different research topics each week, taught by potential supervisors for those topics.
After the culture wars in the American academy in the 1970s, in which students complained about American literature basically consisting a `five dead white men from New England,¿ Donald Pease in 1990 formulated the concept of `New Americanists.¿ Feminist, racial, theoretical, new historical, and class criticism apparently destroyed the consensus criticism of the `American Renaissance¿ (Matthiessen) and the `American Adam¿ (Lewis, Smith, and others), opening up the canon and manner of critique. American literary criticism changed dramatically, reinventing itself time after time, and focusing on different terrains. This year, our very own `new Americanists¿ will explore this research landscape via topics in: The African American Child and Postcolonial Film, Ecology, American Pornography, PostRacial African Americanism, Whiteness Studies, American Postmodern Stylistics, Post Classical Hollywood Film, Postmodern American Animals, and American Postmodern Detective Fiction.
