Anglo-American Cultures I
A.Y. 2023/2024
Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding: students, who are expected to know and be able to apply basic cultural studies methodologies, will be led to better define and analyse the relationships between culture, discursive strategies, social phenomena, mass communication, production and consumption of cultural products, and to analyze them from the perspective of ideology and their social, spatial, historical and political contexts. Within the frame of their improved language competences and awareness , they will be led to gain an improved awareness of the relationship between language and cultures within the US context and in connection with the chosen syllabus. MA courses are meant for qualitative, more than quantitative, study and tends to privilege a limited number of texts that must be read and analyzed with sophisticated skills.
Expected learning outcomes
Students will be required to be fluent in both written and spoken English in approaching texts and topics of relevant complexity and belonging to the field of culture, society and literature, managing the required critical lexis and organizing contents coherently. They must prove familiar with the texts proposed in the syllabus and they must be able to analyse them both at the syntagmatic level and at the paradigmatic one.
Moreover they must prove able to approach texts and topic autonomously, exploiting the methodological tools acquired during their MA training, therefore completing their linguistic training through the cultural one.
Moreover they must prove able to approach texts and topic autonomously, exploiting the methodological tools acquired during their MA training, therefore completing their linguistic training through the cultural one.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course can be attended as a single course.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
To define California is to refer not only to a place called California but to the cultural and literary construction of that place. To represent California culturally is to face this constant tension between real and imagined California.
California contains a range of species of plants and animals greater than any other area of comparable size in North America. It is also the most relevant state in the Union for international a airs, electoral weight, economic power, cultural production, environmental innovation, social heterogeneity, and migration ows. The mythical bearing of such bountiful nature and dynamic culture is that the "Land of Sunshine" - the frontier of pioneers and Gold Rush boosters - has been constructed as an Eden of infinite riches. In this place, the most ambitious dreams can be realized. The reverse of the glove of this optimistic narrative is the counter-myth of a paradise on the verge of exploding (hence the catastrophic, apocalyptic streak) or gone to ruin.
This course o ers an introduction to California's cultural geography and history through some of its most iconic representations, focusing on specific moments in its 20th-century history: the San Francisco earthquake (1906); the 1930s; the 1960s; the 1990s.
Literary, journalistic, photographic, and film contributions and geographical essays will be analyzed.
Joan Didion's memoir, Where I Was From (2003), a landmark contribution to California's literature, will be read in full.
Unit 1
General overview and introduction, California history and geography (J. Muir)
The San Francisco earthquake (J. London, M.H. Kingston)
The Great Depression (J. Steinbeck, D. Lange, J. M. Cain, R. Chandler, Hollywood)
The 1960s, San Francisco and L.A.: Watts Rebellion, Summer of Love, Manson Murders (T. Pynchon, J. Didion, Beat poetry)
Unit 2
The 1990s, L.A.: Rodney King (Justice riots)
Joan Didion, Where I was from (2003)
California contains a range of species of plants and animals greater than any other area of comparable size in North America. It is also the most relevant state in the Union for international a airs, electoral weight, economic power, cultural production, environmental innovation, social heterogeneity, and migration ows. The mythical bearing of such bountiful nature and dynamic culture is that the "Land of Sunshine" - the frontier of pioneers and Gold Rush boosters - has been constructed as an Eden of infinite riches. In this place, the most ambitious dreams can be realized. The reverse of the glove of this optimistic narrative is the counter-myth of a paradise on the verge of exploding (hence the catastrophic, apocalyptic streak) or gone to ruin.
This course o ers an introduction to California's cultural geography and history through some of its most iconic representations, focusing on specific moments in its 20th-century history: the San Francisco earthquake (1906); the 1930s; the 1960s; the 1990s.
Literary, journalistic, photographic, and film contributions and geographical essays will be analyzed.
Joan Didion's memoir, Where I Was From (2003), a landmark contribution to California's literature, will be read in full.
Unit 1
General overview and introduction, California history and geography (J. Muir)
The San Francisco earthquake (J. London, M.H. Kingston)
The Great Depression (J. Steinbeck, D. Lange, J. M. Cain, R. Chandler, Hollywood)
The 1960s, San Francisco and L.A.: Watts Rebellion, Summer of Love, Manson Murders (T. Pynchon, J. Didion, Beat poetry)
Unit 2
The 1990s, L.A.: Rodney King (Justice riots)
Joan Didion, Where I was from (2003)
Prerequisites for admission
Students must be able to read and understand complex texts in English, and they must express their critical position on the suggested issues and be methodologically aware.
Teaching methods
Classes will develop partly on a lecture-based method and partly as a seminar. Guest speakers on specific topics will be invited.
Teaching Resources
Besides excerpts and open-access articles,
Joan Didion's Where I Was From (2003)
and six critical essays to be defined.
Joan Didion's Where I Was From (2003)
and six critical essays to be defined.
Assessment methods and Criteria
Students will have the opportunity to carry out some in-depth activities (term papers) that will be subject to evaluation and on which more specific indications will be given in class. The overall assessment will be communicated at the end of the oral exam.
L-LIN/11 - ANGLO - AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES - University credits: 6
Lessons: 40 hours
Professor:
Scarpino Cinzia
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Professor(s)