The Campus Novel in the US

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The Campus Novel in the United States” surveys works of literary fiction written since the early twentieth century that use the setting of the university campus to explore a variety of political, economic, cultural, and philosophical questions. A key but not the only focus will be on the opening of higher education to communities historically excluded from such access (women, people of color, indigenous, first-generation, immigrant, lgbtq students, and students with disabilities), as well as its opening to the study and production of knowledge about those communities. Possible key readings include Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, Ellison’s Invisible Man, DeLillo’s White Noise, Smiley’s Moo, Smith’s On Beauty, Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, Capo-Crucet’s Make Your Home Among Strangers, and Taylor’s The Late Americans. Supplementary work in other genres and media will include, for example, Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (play and film), film texts like The Graduate, Animal House, and Legally Blonde, and the television series Community. The course satisfies the HALC and Diversity-Domestic requirements and should be cross-listed with AMST, WGST, and JUPS.