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| GERM0038-1 | Seminar in American Studies
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| Duration : | 30h SEM |
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| Number of credits : |
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| Lecturer : | Michel Delville |
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| Substitute(s) : | Ben De Bruyn |
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Language(s) of instruction :
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| French language |
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Course contents :
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| 'Popular Literary Culture'
As Jim Collins has recently shown in his Bring on the Books for Everybody. How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture (2010), late postmodern fiction has become an unexpectedly popular phenomenon via its digital infrastructure, visual strategies and lessons in quality consumerism. In this year's seminar in American Studies, we will be examining Collins's argument in more detail by reading a series of related texts (including essays by Franzen and Wallace) as well as three contemporary novels (Egan, Cline, Shteyngart). We will be looking especially at the visualization of contemporary literature as well as its commercialization via the interaction with certain 'lifestyle' discourses (tourism, food, fashion). |
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Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning) :
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| See : http://cipl82.philo.ulg.ac.be/horaires |
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Recommended or required readings :
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| reader with excerpts of essays by Franzen, Wallace and others
Jim Collins, Bring on the Books for Everybody. How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad |
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Assessment methods and criteria :
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| Paper and oral exam based on paper and reading list. |
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Contacts :
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| Dr. Ben De Bruyn
ben.debruyn@arts.kuleuven.be |
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