Topics in the Literature of American Cultures

This class proposes to look at journeys of self-discovery that are also a discovery of diversity in the  American racial and cultural makeup as depicted in films and poems predominantly from the 1970s. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to end racial discrimination that prevented African Americans from voting, an important structural change, however attitudes surrounding the implementation of these rights continue to pose problems today. In lieu of focusing on threats from abroad, a new generation of filmmakers and poets created works that both documented the contemporary racial landscape and exposed ossified race, gender and class stratification. Rather than tracing linear trajectories along these well-trodden lines, these journeys emphasize wandering through episodic logics like that of Homer’s Odyssey and allow for a proliferation of encounters. We will discuss how road, space and time travel films reveal mythologies and realities associated with an idea of Americanness and talk about the conditions and challenges that accompany the desire for a homecoming. These encounters often begin with stereotypes and venture far afield into unknown territories, both geographical and psychological, even interplanetary. We will seek to understand postmodern forms and what the awareness of genre and metanarratives can contribute to an understanding of race and performativity of race. We will focus our attention on affect theory and how guilt, shame and contempt constitute an individual embodiment of large-scale socio-political and economic structural norms and priorities.

The course satisfies the American Cultures requirement.

Required Films:

American Graffiti dir. George Lucas (1973)
Contempt dir. Jean-Luc Godard (1963)
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song dir. Melvin Van Peebles (1971)
Wanda dir. Barbara Loden (1970)
Zelig dir. Woody Allen (1983)
Space is the Place dir. John Coney (1973)
Bladerunner dir. Ridley Scott (1982)
Enter the Dragon dir. Robert Clouse (1973)
Chinatown dir. Roman Polanski (1973)
Blazing Saddles dir. Mel Brooks (1974)
Killer of Sheep dir. Charles Burnett (1978)
Django Unchained dir. Quentin Tarantino (2014)

Required Books:

Available for purchase at University Press Books:

Citizen: An American Lyric Claudia Rankine (2014) ISBN-10: 1555976905
The Sellout: A Novel Paul Beatty (2015) ISBN-10: 0374260508