BERGAMO
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
At the end of the course the students will have acquired a sound knowledge of some of the main aspects of the culture and literature of the United States. Students will also reach a good of knowledge of the contemporary debates about canonicity, mass culture and American identity.
Course Prerequisites
Prerequisites: Good knowledge of the literature of the USA. Having passed the exam of "Anglo-American literature I" and "English Language I".
Teaching Methods
Assessment Methods
The final exam will be written and include 2 questions. It will last two hours. Students will be asked 1) to contextualize and analyze a passage taken from one of the primary sources, and 2) to write a short essay on one of the topics analyzed during the course. The quality of the language used (grammatical and lexical correctness, fluency, rhetorical effectiveness) will be a significant element of the overall evaluation. Attending students who choose to give a 15 minute oral presentation in class (on a topic chosen under the guidance of the instructor) will take an abridged exam.
Grading scale: a. Outstanding (30 e lode ): excellent knowledge of all of the contents of the course. Excellent ability to analyze the texts and to contextualize them in an appropriate way. The student uses the academic writing register/style with appropriate linguistic terminologies. b. Very good (30 to 27): very good knowledge of all of the contents of the course. Very good ability to analyze the texts and to contextualize them in an appropriate way. c. Good (26-24): Good knowledge of the contents of the course. Adequate ability to describe the texts. The language used is simple but correct. d. Fair/sufficient (23-18): The work has sufficient knowledge, coherence, use of appropriate resources and quality of presentation to warrant a basic pass. The ability to analyze the texts is not wholly satisfactory. The work is very descriptive and does not fully address the issues raised by the question. e. Fail (below 18): The student demonstrates only a basic awareness of the contents of the course. The work is frequently confused and incoherent.
Contents
The course is taught by two instructors: Professor Gennero and Professor Rosso. In the first part of the course (18 hours), Professor Gennero will provide an introduction to the relationship between literature and history. The texts under analysis will all be by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Scarlet Letter", "Mrs. Hutchinson", "Endicott and the Red Cross", and "The May-Pole of Merry Mount". A detailed bibliography of the assigned readings is available on both Leganto and Moodle.
In the second part of the course, Professor Rosso will revisit key concepts from Linda Hutcheon’s "A Theory of Adaptation" (second edition), with particular emphasis on the four clichés discussed in Chapter 2. He will then proceed with the analysis of three narrative texts, their historical contexts, and their adaptations:
- Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw" (1898);
- Tennessee Williams, "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947);
- Raymond Chandler, "The Long Goodbye" (1953).
Some students will have the opportunity to give brief in-class presentations (approximately 15 minutes) on other works by James, Williams, and Chandler, as well as by other authors such as Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry.
A detailed bibliography and suggested readings will be made available on Moodle (e-learning platform).
Online Resources
More information
The course will take place in the first Semester (1st and 2nd sub-periods).
Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus students should inform the instructor of their enrollment in the course by sending her/him an e-mail before the beginning of the course (valeria.gennero@unibg.it(link sends e-mail) and stefano.rosso@unibg(link sends e-mail)). IMPORTANT: For a complete list of the required readings (primary and secondary sources), students must carefully read the course bibliography in LEGANTO. The same information will also be available on the Moodle pages for this course.