This module is discontinued in the selected year. The information shown below is for the academic year that the module was last running in, prior to the year selected.
2016/17 Undergraduate Module Catalogue
ENGL3377 Against the Great American Novel: Panoramic US Narratives, 1900-present
20 creditsClass Size: 30
School of English
Module manager: Dr Andrew Warnes
Email: a.warnes@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2016/17
Pre-requisite qualifications
Please note: this module is restricted to Level 3 students on BA programmes with English and visiting students.This module is not approved as a discovery module
Objectives
To acquire greater knowledge of the American literary tradition post-1900; of the structure and ethic imperatives of the novel; of the relationship between democratic ideals and the American novel in particular.Learning outcomes
The transferable skills students will acquire as a result of this module include written and oral communication skills; independent research skills; sensitivity to and empathy with others; consideration of political commitment to notions of democratic equality and inclusivity.
Skills outcomes
- Skills for effective communication, oral and written.
- Capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse.
- Ability to acquire quantities of complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way.
- Capacity for independent thought and judgement.
- Critical reasoning.
- Research skills, including information retrieval skills, the organisation of material, and the evaluation of its importance.
- IT skills.
- Time management and organisational skills.
- Independent learning.
Syllabus
The Great American Novel has always been something of a fantasy. Over its fairly long history, and at least since Senator John James Ingalls tried and failed to persuade William Dean Howells to write one in the 1870s, it has appeared less a living genre than a cause célèbre, a more or less unwritten object of various patriotic campaigns. At the same time these campaigns, in urging American novelists to celebrate the equality and diversity of their new nation, were not perhaps entirely unsuccessful. Most leading US writers might have scorned the Great American Novel itself, disliking what they considered its passive and dull mode of celebrating American democracy. New narrative methods that they have cultivated, however, nonetheless aim to establish different forms of democratic recognition. All manner of literary US traditions - African American, Native American, Jewish American - have rewritten the novel in such a way as to call attention to the erasures and injustices by which US society has failed to fulfil its vaunted democratic commitments. As they have inhabited communities and consciousnesses on the edge of US life, imaginatively reinstating the commitment to rights for all its citizens, N. Scott Momaday, Toni Morrison and a host of others have manifested a sort of productive ambivalence towards the Great American Novel. In their very refusal to represent American democracy as an accomplished fact they have upheld this patriotic commitment, reconceiving it via their own narrative practices. As such, at least linguistically speaking, texts on this module bear an antagonistic kinship with the Great American Novel not unlike that we might find between the antiheros and heroes of other texts. Our set texts, if pitted against a largely imaginary Great American Novel, nonetheless uphold its faith in US democracy insofar as they correct its betrayals and envision all manner of 'more perfect unions' to come. A chance to read some classic US narratives, this module also helps us develop a sense of their political as well as cultural terrain navigated by the modern American tradition.
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Workshop | 5 | 1.00 | 5.00 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| Private study hours | 185.00 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 15.00 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200.00 | ||
Private study
Teaching will be through 10 x 1 hour weekly seminars plus 5 x 1 hour workshops.Private Study: Reading, seminar preparation and essay writing.
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
- Contribution to seminars- Feedback on first assessed essay
Methods of assessment
Coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
| Essay | 2,250 words | 50.00 |
| Essay | 2,250 words | 50.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100.00 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 26/04/2016
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- Undergraduate module catalogue
- Taught Postgraduate module catalogue
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- Taught Postgraduate programme catalogue
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