ENGL 4550 - American Literature: Contemporary

Credits: (3)
Typically taught:
Fall [Full Sem]
Spring [Full Sem]

This course focuses on American literature from the 1950s to the present within the context of the dramatic political and cultural changes that have shaped contemporary American culture, such as the Cold War, Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, feminism and multiculturalism. Like its modernist predecessor, it ranges across genres and media to survey various emergent traditions and tendencies in contemporary and postmodern US letters. Representative writers of this period include: Arthur Miller, Flannery O’Connor, Elizabeth Bishop, Tillie Lerner Olsen, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, Cynthia Ozick, Amiri Baraka, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rita Dove, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, E. L. Doctorow. Prerequisite: ENGL 3080.