103年第2學期-5127 美國哀歎文學 課程資訊

評分方式

評分項目	配分比例	說明
weekly response papers	10	Written to engage with the chapter readings and/or handouts
essays, short	20	Analysis paper of a key literary theory figure
Report on a selected author	15	Based on assigned pages from the readings
Research essay	35	Research project – student selected topic
Final Presentation	20	Based on research project

教育目標

1. Students will gain knowledge of the history and cultural background of jeremiad writings, including their major proponents, and the rhetorical purposes these works have served within their respective periods and with regard to their topic matter. They will demonstrate mastery of this knowledge in essays, response papers, and in presentations. 2. Students will learn details and information regarding the various styles used to express jeremiads, within various genres, including novels, essays, poems, a political speech, and a scientific study. They will demonstrate mastery of this knowledge in essays, response papers, and in presentations. 3. Students will master comprehension of the various literary devices and techniques used to convey the ideas and issues presented in jeremiad writings, including satire, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, allegory, invective and religious and prophetic discourse. They will demonstrate mastery of this knowledge in essays, response papers, and in presentations. 4. Students will experience a variety of English language literary expressions informing the jeremiad, some creative and imaginative, others concrete and direct, allowing students to absorb a range of English language explanations, descriptions, usages, figurative expressions, religious, historical and philosophical discourses. They will demonstrate mastery of this knowledge in essays, response papers, and in presentations. 5. Students will engage in discussion and formulate evaluations of the various ideological factors informing the development and continuance of the jeremiad tradition, as it manifests among different cultures, races, genders and social classes. They will demonstrate mastery of this knowledge in essays, response papers, and in presentations.

課程概述

This course will explore this seemingly double role of American writers as prophets of impending doom, and as harbingers of a new dispensation, a striving for a better world. Selected readings will inform an analysis and interrogation of this perspective, aimed at giving students a thorough background and understanding of the complications surrounding the interpreting of American literature and culture through this bifocal lens of the jeremiad.

基本資料

選修課，學分數：0-3
上課時間：四/2,3,4[LAN212-2]
修課班級：外文學碩1,2
修課年級：年級以上
選課備註：

參考書目

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” (1837)
Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849)
Herman Melville, The Confidence Man, His Masquerade (1857)
Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas” (1871)
Mark Twain, “Defense of General Funston” (1902)
E.E. Cummings, “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” (1923)
Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here (1935)
William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
Allen Ginsburg, “Howl” (1955)
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
William Burroughs, “Thanksgiving Prayer” (1986)
Thomas Pynchon, Vineland (1990)
Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (2005)
Don DeLillo, Point Omega (2010)