Literature: An American Road Trip - American Literature from 1950 to the Present

Bob Dylan wrote: Well if you ever plan to motor west/Just take my way that's the highway that's the best/Get your kicks on Route 66, while Thom Gunn said Man You Gotta Go. Both quotations surge with restless energy and a desire for freedom, impulses which many of our texts will negotiate with. We will, however, discuss whether this energy is always utopian or whether it has a dystopian darkness inherent in it too.

The course will inevitably touch on the issue, much discussed in American letters, regarding the American Dream, but we will be more minded to explore how these texts disclose a vision of an America divided by race, class, gender and sexuality, which persist in being contentious territories in the U.S. today. We will discover how American writers have consistently interrogated and challenged populism and its simple binary visions and morality. And by the way, the scenery is great along the way as we progress westwards.

This course will prompt wide-ranging discussions and lead us towards a vision of the plural identities that have shaped and continue to shape the U.S. today. It promises to be informative and controversial.