Continuing Education Course Finder: ENGCS07-1a

Picturing the World in Twentieth-Century Literature (ENGCS07-1a)

Status: Closed

Fee: $375.00

Timing: 10 sessions from October 7, 2009 - December 16, 2009 on Wednesday, 7-9pm no class 11/25

Course Description: This course explores America’s role on the world stage. Through a diverse selection of novels and short stories from the 1920s through to the 1950s, we will consider the lone individual’s place in a global society. What do prominent authors such as E.M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, and Graham Greene have to say about the American experience of working and living abroad? How do they answer the question: What does it mean to be an American? With these authors as our travel guides, we will traverse the globe in search of answers.

From the streets of Paris to the slopes of Kilimanjaro, from Spanish bullfights to nights in Saigon, our literary travels will show us the often amusing, sometimes unexpected, yet always thought-provoking portraits of American life overseas. Not just the stuff of fiction, these stories are also acutely aware of their times. We will look at how the first and second world wars and America’s emergence as a global power are reflected in the literary innovations and signature styles of our authors.

Readings include E. M. Forster’s short story “The Last Parade,” Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, and William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick’s The Ugly American.

This course is intended for a general audience keen to discover how their everyday experiences are reflected in popular literature with a global dimension. Our readings will offer a surprising picture of the world around us and our place in it, as both American and world citizens.

Instructor(s): Jennifer Schnepf

Instructor(s) Bio: Jennifer Schnepf is a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at Brown University. She has taught seminars in twentieth century literature and culture at Brown University including, “America Goes Hollywood: Acting and American Literature and Culture.” She has also taught courses in composition and worked as a teaching assistant in the popular lecture course, "American Fiction and Mass Culture." She has presented her research, which focuses on American modernism, at national and international conferences.