American Landscapes
Stephanie Palmer and Tim Youngs - Nottingham Trent University
Following on from a first-year survey of American literature, this module focuses on the representation in American texts of the relationship between North American literature and the landscape. It is often remarked that American identity has been irrevocably shaped by the variety and the vastness of the North American continent. Yet the land is not just an inert force that determines human existence but a site upon which people have inscribed cultural and political meanings. Myths of American exceptionalism have arisen out of the experience and ideologies of frontiering. Students should emerge from the module with a finer appreciation for the landscapes of the United States and their effects on literature. They should also emerge with an understanding of how the literal landscape feeds into a symbolic geography, and indeed, symbolic geography is a threshhold concept of the module.
Urbanisation and its effects on both the psyche and the promise and precariousness of the idea of ‘America’ continue to fascinate. Descriptions of urban spaces reflect on the inequalities between rich and poor and the lost place of the individual in the modern world. Descriptions of rural places reflect on national character and destiny as well.
As with the department’s first-year American literature module, ‘race’ and ethnicity are central concepts. Students are intrigued to hear about the different ethnicities of New York City in ‘Maggie’ and how Crane imitates Irish voices. Native and African American authors are in different positions to whites vis-à-vis the symbolic geographies of the country. Rather than try to represent every ethnicity, the module hones in on geography in African American literature, where topics like the pastoral or the primitive or urban plasticity take on particular valences. The focus on African American texts means that African American authors are not seen as just protesting against dominant trends but forming a significant counter literature.
Urbanisation and its effects on both the psyche and the promise and precariousness of the idea of ‘America’ continue to fascinate. Descriptions of urban spaces reflect on the inequalities between rich and poor and the lost place of the individual in the modern world. Descriptions of rural places reflect on national character and destiny as well.
As with the department’s first-year American literature module, ‘race’ and ethnicity are central concepts. Students are intrigued to hear about the different ethnicities of New York City in ‘Maggie’ and how Crane imitates Irish voices. Native and African American authors are in different positions to whites vis-à-vis the symbolic geographies of the country. Rather than try to represent every ethnicity, the module hones in on geography in African American literature, where topics like the pastoral or the primitive or urban plasticity take on particular valences. The focus on African American texts means that African American authors are not seen as just protesting against dominant trends but forming a significant counter literature.
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