ENGLISH 787 : Literature USA: from the American Renaissance to the Jazz Age

Arts

2025 Semester One (1253) (30 POINTS)

Course Prescription

Examines a selection of classic texts and major issues in the literature of the United States from the American Renaissance of the 1840s and 1850s through to the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s.

Course Overview

Examines a selection of classic texts and major issues in the literature of the United States from the American Renaissance of the 1840s and 50s through to the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 30s. Texts and emphases may vary from year to year, but our primary concern is the relation between literature and some of the larger historical processes and problems of the period. A cross-cultural frontier becomes a settled landscape; a ‘new world’ becomes a new world order; a post-colonial literature engages the traditions of Europe; utopian hopes are contradicted by slavery and its legacies; emancipated women challenge the dominance of men; the big city offers new opportunities for self-fashioning and cultural invention. The theoretical orientation of the course is broadly new historicist and is responsive to recent developments in settler colonial studies, gender theory, environmental and spatial history.
This course promotes advanced reading, critical, and writing skills through the study of a carefully chosen set of thematically interlocking texts.
For 2025: Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance; Melville, Moby-Dick; Thoreau, Walden; Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems; Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Cather, The Professor’s House; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Faulkner, As I Lay Dying.

Course Requirements

No pre-requisites or restrictions

Capabilities Developed in this Course

Capability 1: People and Place
Capability 2: Sustainability
Capability 3: Knowledge and Practice
Capability 4: Critical Thinking
Capability 5: Solution Seeking
Capability 6: Communication
Capability 7: Collaboration
Capability 8: Ethics and Professionalism
Graduate Profile: Master of Arts

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:
  1. Develop and demonstrate a wide-ranging and well-informed understanding of major writers and issues in nineteenth and early twentieth-century American Literature. (Capability 1 and 3)
  2. Develop a theoretical understanding of new historicist, settler-colonial, ecocritical and gender-related approaches to literary and cultural criticism. (Capability 3 and 4)
  3. Analyse how American literary texts give shape to and are shaped by the times and places in which they are set, and evaluate the contemporary implications of the stories they tell. (Capability 4 and 5)
  4. Develop essay writing skills to an appropriate graduate level by modelling the processes that lead to professional publication. (Capability 5, 6 and 8)
  5. Articulate questions and discuss ideas in group work (Capability 6 and 7)
  6. Critically analyse and improve writing through a combination of guided and independent revision. (Capability 4, 5 and 7)
  7. Understand and analyse American literary texts in a comparative settler colonial framework that includes New Zealand and Polynesian understandings. (Capability 1 and 2)

Assessments

Assessment Type Percentage Classification
Presentation 20% Individual Coursework
Assignments 80% Individual Coursework

Exam Mode

There is no final exam for this course.

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 30 point course and students are expected to spend 20 hours per week involved in each 30 point course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect a 3 hour seminar and 10 hours of reading and thinking about the content and 7 hours of work on assignments or presentations per week. 

Delivery Mode

Campus Experience

Attendance is expected at the weekly seminar. 

There are no recordings and the course is not available online. 

Learning Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

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Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework, tests and examinations as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review.

Class Representatives

Class representatives are students tasked with representing student issues to departments, faculties, and the wider university. If you have a complaint about this course, please contact your class rep who will know how to raise it in the right channels. See your departmental noticeboard for contact details for your class reps.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Well-being always comes first
We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/33894, which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Learning Continuity

In the event of an unexpected disruption we undertake to maintain the continuity and standard of teaching and learning in all your courses throughout the year. If there are unexpected disruptions the University has contingency plans to ensure that access to your course continues and your assessment is fair, and not compromised. Some adjustments may need to be made in emergencies. You will be kept fully informed by your course co-ordinator, and if disruption occurs you should refer to the University Website for information about how to proceed.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html.

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.

Published on 30/10/2024 12:18 p.m.