32210 Proseminar

Heinz Ickstadt

Types of Narrative in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Within the context of a rapidly changing society (of continental expansion, immigration, urbanization, the rise of various social movements), literature explored new areas of social experience (of social groups as well as social territories) but also remembered 'old ways' of American life and manners doomed to pass into history.

The seminar will analyse types of narrative in the vicinity of realism, regionalism, naturalism - stories of the West, the South or New England, stories dealing with the experience of immigration, industrialization and the city but also stories focusing on the experience of social groups.

It will discuss short fictions by Bret Hart, Ambrose, Bierce, Own Wister, Mark Twain, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, Mary Wilkins-Freeman, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt and Abraham Cahan.

A READER will be made available at the beginning of the semester.

Requirements: regular attendance, oral participation, and a paper of 12 to 15 pages.