اطلاعات درس

In this seminar, we will use American Studies' expansive notion of 'text' (and of 'literature') to analyze a broad range of US-American cultural production. We will do so from a perspective informed by American Studies' classic interest in questions of race, class, and gender, as well was other categories of difference, and we will focus on the question of these texts' "cultural work" (Lauter). Doing so will allow us to engage in the traditional hermeneutic practices of American studies, to complement this classic view with contemporary scholarship, to practice both (close) reading and researching, and to encounter and enjoy a broad variety of US-American texts organized around the topic of technological dystopias. While we will keep an eye out for the applicability of these methods in the classroom, our main focus will be on the more strictly academic aspects of doing this kind of scholarly work.