American Literature and the Cold War

A study of American literature in the context of the broad intellectual culture--strategic, ideological, philosophical, aesthetic, and economic--engendered by the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991. We will assess the role of the bomb, McCarthyism, game theory, the military industrial complex, and strategic doctrines of containment and deterrence in the rise of postmodernism in American literature. Authors to be considered include Bellow, Highsmith, Millar, Ellison, McCarthy, Mailer, Pynchon, Wideman, Coover, Delillo. Students should register for ENGL 1710Y S01 and may be assigned to conference sections by the instructor during the first week of class.