This module follows on chronologically from EH4145 American Literature, covering the period from the closing of the frontier to the present day. Through a selection of texts reflecting the diverse voices of the literature, students explore the physical, cultural and sociopolitical geographies of America. Reading accounts of the city and town, the urban and suburban, the road, the land, the reservation, or the South, students engage with questions of self and society, class and race, national identity, marginalisation, counterculturalism and globalisation, as expressed within differing literary movements.

This module covers American fiction, poetry and drama from 1890 to the present day, including works by, for example, Chopin, Wharton, Crane, Stein, Frost, Stevens, Pound, Eliot, O Neill, Cummings, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Welty, Williams, Salinger, Kerouac, Heller, O Connor, Ginsberg, Plath, DeLillo, and Pynchon; African-American writing by Du Bois, Hurston, Hughes, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Morrison and Baraka; Asian-American writing by Mukherjee, Tan and Lahiri; Jewish-American writing by Singer, Malamud, Bellow, Miller, and Roth; Native American writing by Silko and Erdrich; literature after 9/11. In defining the themes and interpreting the literature of the period, attention is paid to political, social and cultural contexts (for example, the Great Depression, the World Wards, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War), to significant concepts and philosophies (for example, realism, naturalism, modernism, postmodernism), and to literary movements (for example, regional writing, the Lost Generation, the Harlem Renaissance, the Beat Generation).

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: Identify key themes in American literature since 1890. Locate texts within literary movements and philosophies. Examine texts in their cultural, social and political contexts. Discuss issues relating to the literature of the period. Interpret and criticise texts through close reading. Evaluate developments in contemporary American literature.

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to: Demonstrate an appreciation of the aesthetic and thematic richness of American literature since 1890.

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This module will be taught through a combination of lectures and tutorials that engage with selected primary texts and that are supplemented by secondary literary and critical material (assigned, recommended and/or sourced by students). Lectures will combine contextualisation with close reading, illustrated, where necessary, by visual and audio material. Tutorials will have an emphasis on participative group-work and through a focus on critical discussion, will develop skills in reading, listening and communicating.