Documentary Literature in the 20th and 21st Century

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course we will read works of literature from the 20th and 21st centuries that present, subvert, challenge and question the stories of "what happened" through a variety of literary, filmic, and documentary techniques. We will read works of nonfiction journalism as well as novels, examine how the development of photographic technologies and the circulation of "the news" change the perception of time and history, read experimental and poetic utopian re-tellings of historical violences towards activist ends of social change, consider the function of monuments and performances that attempt to preserve or change our memories of the past, and watch performance works and embodied movements that all engage the documentary. We will examine the play between the subjective perspective and presentational form of historical events and the people that documentary literature portrays through the work of artists and authors such as Dorothea Lange, Charles Reznikoff, Muriel Rukeyser, Joshua Oppenheimer, Mark Nowak, and Divya Victor.