Course information

Title

The Jazz Age

Lecturer

Kovács Ágnes Zsófia

Course code

check Neptun for all the codes, the YSE Erasmus code is among them

Credit

4

Location

Check Neptun, not known as yet

Time

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Course description

Short description

The course offers an introduction to US literary production of the 1920s traditionally called the Jazz Age. The 1920s can be characterized by post WW1 hedonistic sentiments and an economic boom ending in the Great Depression in 1928. The Jazz Age is an umbrella term for diverse sorts of intellectual and/or artistic productions between the end of WW1 and the Great Depression: as its name indicates, it is connected to new trends in popular music, but 'jazz' on a more abstract level is present in fine arts and, most importantly for us, in literature as well. F.S. Fitzgerald used the term the jazz age to describe the atmosphere of the decade. At the same time, one should not forget about the major racial revolution of the 20s, the so called Harlem Renaissance or Black Arts Movement. Its major figure, Alain Locke, writes about the way African Americans can change their social position in his "The New Negro." In our readings, we are to trace literary pieces both of Fizgerald's "Jazz age" and of Locke's "New Negro Movement." Eventually, we are to have a glimpse at the broader intellectual context of the age. Readings will include Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Yezierska, Cather, Hughes, Larsen, and Hurston.

Schedule

Semester

2018/9 fall

Requirements

Requirements to get the grade

requirements and evaluation

journals: 30%

presentation: 30 %

end-term seminar paper: 40%

grading

1-50=1, 51-64=2, 65-78=3, 79-90=4, 91-100=5

Reading list

Susan V. Donaldson's Competing Voices: The American Novel, 1865-1914 (NY: Twayne, 1998),

A Companion to American Fiction, 1865-1914, edited by Robert Paul Lamb and G.R. Thompson (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005).

Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern American Novel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992 (1983).

Suggested reading list