Topics in the Literature of American Cultures

Topics in the Literature of American Cultures

(Re)Making American History
Course Number: 
60AC
Course Catalog Number: 
31631
Course Type or Level: 
Instructor: 
Karina Palau
Days: 
Tu/Th
Time: 
12:30-2pm
Semester: 
Location: 
Remote

What makes American history, and why would we want to—need to—remake it? This course explores literary and visual materials produced in the post-Civil Rights U.S. by artists and writers who ponder this question and approach history like a raw material that demands to be refashioned and constantly problematized. What versions of American history have they remade, and what new versions and visions of history do they produce in the process? How has re-making history been used to gain a critical understanding of silences and omissions in the United States’ story? What are the limits to historical revision and reconstruction, and how do these coexist alongside the need to experiment with imaginative modes of repurposing the stories and materials that form what we call ‘American history’? How can we question the redemptive power of re-making history while battling to recuperate ‘minor’ or silenced histories that might otherwise never be told? Approaching history as an ever-changing construction, our course will raise questions about ways to revise and multiply America’s histories, but also explore alternative strategies for making history as well.