AMERICAN LITERATURE 1 MOD. 1

The course is part of the MA in American, European and Postcolonial Languages and Cultures and the MA in Linguistics. It aims to provide students with advanced knowledge and skills in the literary and cultural fields, particularly in the history of American literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present day. Students will have the opportunity to improve their skills in textual analysis as applied to works of prose and poetry, and to place these works in their respective historical and cultural contexts. The analytical tools acquired over the three years of the undergraduate course will be tested and developed, starting with the knowledge of literary history and critical theory and methodology; the ability to work independently and to discuss the results of their work orally will be encouraged.

The specific pedagogical objectives of the course are:
1) to develop an in-depth knowledge and understanding of key works of Californian American literature between the 1800s and the 2000s;
2) the ability to apply this knowledge and understanding to other texts;
3) the development of advanced skills in communicating the content studied in English;
4) the ability to discuss and evaluate primary and secondary materials with relative autonomy;
5) the ability to work synergistically with other students.

Advanced knowledge of written and spoken English (≥ C1). Good knowledge of the history of American literature and the basic theoretical concepts of literary theory, acquired during the undergraduate course in Languages, Civilizations and Linguistics and/or the reading of the reference works as in the bibliography.

Immediately after joining the United States in 1848, California became an attractive place for immigrants as a consequence of the discovery of gold. People from other parts of the U.S. and from abroad flocked there with the dream of becoming rich; the number of new comers grew again at the beginning of the 20th century, because of the oil industry and Hollywood, and later as a consequence of different migration waves. Since the beginning of its Anglophone history, California has been represented as an Edenic land, blessed by eternal sunshine, internationally perceived as a land of golden dreams despite its xenophobic history and its environmental precariousness. This course will chronologically cover some of the most representative texts of Californian literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries, with specific reference to environmental, social, and racial issues.

Primary sources
Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona. 1884. Chapters 1-3, 6 (on Moodle)
Upton Sinclair, Oil!, 1927. Chap. 1.
C Pam Zhang, How Much of These Hills Is Gold. 2020 (whole book)
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. 1939 (whole book)
John Fante, Ask the Dust. 1939. (whole book)
Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California”. 1956
Black Panthers, 10 points program. 1966
TV series Snowfall, 2017-2023. Seasons 1, 2 and 3.

Secondary sources
Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear, chapter 1.
---. “Sunshine or Noir”, in The City of Quartz (1990).
Anderson, Sigrid. 2024. Land of Sunshine: Race, Gender, and Regional Development in a California Periodical. Introduction. (BALI)
Dydia DeLyser, “Ramona Memories: Fiction, Tourist Practices, and Placing the Past in Southern California”
Lagayette, Pierre. “California in Late Settlement”. (pdf on Moodle)
Gosh, Amitav. “Petrofiction: The Oil Encounter and the Novel” (on Moodle)
Melissa Ryan. “At Home in America: John Fante and the Imaginative American Self”. Studies in American Fiction. 2004. Vol. 32.2; pg. 185, 28 pgs.
Hunzinker, Alyssa. “Chinese Exclusion, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonial Refusal in C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills Is Gold”. MELUS 47.4 (2022), pg. 22-48.

The student must pass three different exams, which combined provide the final grade.
1- A reader's response (20%), to be submitted by December 31, 2025
2- Written exam (50%). The written exam is 3 hours long and is divided into 2 parts:
A) it requires the writing of 3 mini-essays on selected topics. Students must be able to discuss a topic thoroughly but within the assigned count limit. The student is asked 3 questions (specific or broad) on 3 different topics, which the students must use to organize their critical discourse on the themes of the course. The questions may be the comment of a text, a precise date/title/etc., or a broad investigation of a topic. The exam is not thought of as a test, but as a short critical essay of about 15 lines whose aim is the assessment of the learning goals (knowledge of the historical and critical frame and of the texts; comparative and analytical skills; independent thought; communicative skills).
B) A reader’s response on the TV series Snowfall.
3- If the student passes the written exam, they can sit for the oral interview (30%)

Primary and secondary sources are mandatory.
PAY ATTENTION: YOU MUST HAVE THE TEXTS, EITHER PRINTED OR IN A DIGITAL FORMAT, DURING THE ORAL INTERVIEW

written and oral

The minimum grade is 18, the maximum grade is 30 cum laude. Grades correspond to:
A. range 18-22: sufficient content knowledge; limited ability to discuss independently, limited knowledge of theoretical tools, limited knowledge of cultural-historical context and debates.
B. range 23-26: fair content knowledge; fair independent discussion skills, fair knowledge of theoretical tools, fair knowledge of cultural-historical context and debates.
C. range 27-29: good content knowledge; good independent discussion skills, good knowledge of theoretical tools, good knowledge of historical-cultural context and debates.
D. 30: very good content knowledge, independent discussion skills and very good knowledge of the theoretical tools; very good knowledge of the historical-cultural context and debates.
D. Honors/cum laude: awarded in case the knowledge of contents, the independent discussion skills, the knowledge of theoretical tools, of the cultural-historical context and of the debates are excellent and the student expands what is required by the course syllabus

Lectures and seminars, class discussion, participation in literary events with authors and/or conferences

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development