In this seminar, we will practice reading American fiction, both film and written texts, through the canonical categories of difference in American studies: race, class, and gender. In doing so, we will also work on a more general understanding of periods, modes, and genres. In addition to practicing close-reading these texts, we will draw on a diverse body of theory to better analyze, understand, and contextualize the cultural work our texts do, along with the contradictions and ambiguities they harbor. Throughout the semester we will thus practice key analytic and research skills. Taken together, the individual elements of the seminar are meant to prepare you to do independent academic work on primary texts within the field of American studies.
- Trainer/in: Sebastian M. Herrmann