| Professor Rachel Adams [email protected] (212) 854-3831 Office hours: Monday 12:30-2pm and Wednesday 4-5:30pm, 408G Philosophy |
Class Meetings: Monday 6:10-8pm, location TBA |
| Beginning with the premise that U.S. culture is profoundly shaped by its encounters with the rest of the world, this course examines a range of approaches to the study of American literature in transnational context.� Our readings will cover a series of overlapping and interconnected critical paradigms, including theoretical writing on transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, internationalism, (post)coloniality, diaspora, borderlands, and globalization.� Our discussion of these concepts will emerge in tandem with our reading of literary texts intended to serve as test cases for trying out and debating the usefulness of different theoretical models.� Specific couplings of theory and literature are not intended to imply a precise correspondence or to preclude discussion of alternative interpretive models.� Instead, we will work on developing an increasingly rich and varied critical vocabulary over the course of the semester.� The historical time frame of our investigation extends from literary representations of the transatlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century to narratives of migrancy, diaspora, and border cultures in the contemporary period. |