120043 AR Literature Course (interactive) - American/North American Lit./Studies (2011S)

In Oscar Wilde's play A Woman of No Importance (1893), the character Lord Illingworth remarks laconically: "The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years." And even today, this aphorism does not seem to have lost its relevance. It comes as no surprise, then, that a nation which for centuries was perceived, and stylized itself, as the epitome of newness and youthfulness was also preoccupied with this issue in its cultural products. The coming-of-age of adolescents has thus always been one of the major themes of American literature. Alcott's Jo March, Twain's Huck Finn, Hemingway's Nick Adams, and Salinger's Holden Caulfield are only a few of the myriad of American Adams and Eves that populate the novel and the short story. Contemporary fiction still features the adolescent and the rite-de-passage in new takes on genres such as the novel of development and the story of initiation. This class will trace the development of the literature of "becoming" in the United States from its origins in the 19th century until today. The focus will be specifically on female initiation, as the gender aspects of the literary rite of passage have long been subject to scholarly neglect. Discussions of instances of the genre from the 19th and the 20th century will provide the grounding for the analysis of a number of recent additions to the field. Time and availability permitting, screenings and discussions of filmic adaptations of some of the assigned and further texts such as Little Women, Girl, Interrupted, Smooth Talk, The Virgin Suicides or The Lovely Bones might also be included. Additionally, one class meeting might partly be dedicated to the discussion of the cultural implications of TV-shows such as My So-Called Life, Veronica Mars and Gossip Girl.