ENL 400: Sem:American Literature

Course Topic Description: This capstone seminar examines the trope of memory in contemporary multiethnic American literature (post-1975). We will engage with current theories about memory -- nostalgia, commemoration, memorialization, and especially studies of memory and trauma -- considering the ways memory is formulated simultaneously as personal, cultural, and historic, and the way that varied types of memory or acts of remembering have been conceived as ethical (narrative) practices. We'll juxtapose these theoretical concepts with literary texts whose narratives of memory make both specific and universal claims, and function in both private and public capacities. Memory is inextricably tied to conceptions of self, and we will examine how the act of remembering functions in the formation of identity, both in our examination of literary work and as we each engage in creative explorations through "memory work." We will consider the specific cultural contexts of the literature and examine the ways our writers use a universal concept to get at the specificity of individual cultures and histories. Although we will mostly focus on the novel, we will also read short fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and theoretical essays. Authors may include Morrison, Silko, Erdrich, Ozick, Kingston, Atwood, Butler, Danticat, Robinson. They are all fabulous.