American studies track

What is American Studies?

What does America stand for? What does it mean to be an American? And subsequently, who “is” considered an American – and who is not? These are the core questions – as timely as ever – that we seek to explore during the semester. This course introduces students to American Studies, as both an academic discipline that we study, as well as a contested idea to be debated. It surveys the increasingly broadening fields of study that fall under the rubric of American Studies – literature, history, social sciences, cinema, music and art – and teaches students ‘how to’ conduct research by applying or combining them. At heart, the course gives students a “taste” of the excitingly diverse, and constantly evolving, flavors of American Studies in order to help them locate a particular area/topic/era/methodology that they might wish to pursue in a more advanced manner in their later studies.

Drama and Creative Writing

This workshop aims to give students the opportunity to develop the skills and techniques as writers, focusing on dramatic strategies. Throughout the semester they read and analyze a range of theoretical approaches to dramatic practices, as well as exemplary texts (From Aristotle to Robert McKee, from William Shakespeare to Phoebe Waller Bridges). They explore key concepts such as premise, plot, action, scene, dialogue, and apply them practically and creatively in class. The course is devoted to the discussion of the writer's craft as well as sharing students' work.

Reimagining History in Contemporary American Literature

A genre of speculative fiction, alternate history reimagines history by reshaping it, posing different historical scenarios, developments and narratives, yet remaining close enough to ‘consensus history’ (‘facts’) for the reader to understand its ‘distortion.’ Such texts, which permit insights into the existing reality, are largely critical of it. This course will focus on the way contemporary America reimagines its history, especially in relation to the contemporary era of post-truth, misinformation and hoaxes. We will additionally consider the role of photography embedded within historical fantasy, and explore the shifting understandings of photographic meaning.

Thinking and writing for TV

A workshop

This course offers a workshop environment in which we will develop ideas for a TV drama or comedy, from their earliest stages all the way 
to a proposal or pitch document. We’ll identify and discuss the elements that make up a serialised TV series, including setting, plot, characters, arcs and themes; 
we’ll practice writing dialogue and scenes, and learn to tune fine-tune our intentions and writing voices. 
We’ll also explore elements that are less-discussed but no less critical to the screenwriter's craft: intuition, instinct, 
imagination, improvisation, gut feelings, associations and other intangibles that find their way into our work. 

We’ll also discuss verbal pitching and graphic pitch decks, look at shifting network/market demands, 
analyze film and TV shows and hear guests from the local industry (such as producers, agents, writers or directors) 
to get a broader perspective on the art and business of TV writing. 

 Contemporary American Fiction 

This course focuses on short stories by prominent contemporary American writers. The short story in America has held a prominent place in the American literary tradition. It became a "national form" around the 1820's and 1830's, when Americans "virtually invented what came to be called 'the short story', in its modern literary form". The course will include works by John Cheever and Raymond Carver, who perfected the form, along with other major short story writers, among them Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Dorothy Parker, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ann Rice, to show in what ways women writers' grasp of the American psyche may differ from their male counterparts.

American Migration Fiction: 1970 to the Present

The course will focus on contemporary American migration fiction. Located in between cultures, languages, and geographies, this fiction is characterized by a non-homogeneous, nonlinear, and non-chronological expression of space-time, translated differently by each author into the form and structure of the novel. 

The authors redefine the meaning of home, culturally, figuratively, and linguistically, to confront questions relating to memory and loss, difference and similarity, distance and proximity, insider and outsider, & translation and trans-creation. These new perspectives suggest the authors' unwillingness to 'overcome' or 'resolve' the duality typically conceived as inherent to the condition of migration; rather, they seek to benefit from their excess of roots, and in doing so, continue to define what it means to be American. 
 

Introduction to American Drama

This course will be dedicated to exploring the development of the American Theatre, mostly throughout the 20th century. We will read and discuss plays by the leading writers of American drama – from Eugene O'Neill (The Iceman Cometh), Arthur Miller (The Crucible), Tennessee Williams (Streetcar Named Desire), Lilian Hellman (The Children's Hour), Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf) and David Mamet (Oleanna), to more recent Suzan Lori Parks (Todog/Underdog) and Lin Manuel Miranda (Hamilton). We will critically read these writers' texts and discuss how they broke new ground in their contribution to political, social, and cultural debates.