ENGL 4745 - [The Turning Point: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s]

(crosslisted) AMST 4745
(LA-AS)

Fall. Not offered 2015-2016. 4 credits.

Prerequisite: At least one English class at the 3000-level or above.

G. Hutchinson.

The War. The Bomb. Planetary Consciousness. Film Noir. In one of the most pivotal decades in history, the United States emerged as a superpower and its literature achieved a prestige unmatched before or since. We will examine literary and other responses to the tumultuous events of the 1940s, from fascism’s spread across Europe to the onset of the Cold War. Writers and artists, far from triumphalist, questioned the nature of humanity in the wake of incomprehensible catastrophe. A planetary consciousness emerged along with the modern ecological movement and the UN. Expect to read major authors like Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, novels of the war and a classic ecological treatise, alongside film and visual arts.