Introductory description

EN3E9-30 States of Damage: Twenty-First Century US Writing and Culture

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (Norton, 2006; rev. ed. 2014)
Term 1, week 1: Joint session 1: Introduction: C21 US writing and culture
Term 2, week 1: Joint session 2: Ana Duvernay (dir.), 13th
Shapiro term
Week 2.
Mark Fisher, selections from Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Zero Books, 2009)
Ivor Southwood, selections from Non-Stop Inertia (Zero Books, 2011)
Dale Beran, “4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump”
“Fuck You, Buddy” from The Trap (2007), dir. Adam Curtis
Week 3.
Gerard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, from The Crisis of Neoliberalism (Harvard UP, 2011): 7-32, 45-54.
Michael Denning, selections from The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century, 3-50.
Week 4.
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (Fleet, 2017)
#blacklivesmatter videos
Please listen to Charlie Parker’s “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” and read the short article “Hair Relaxer Facts – What is A Hair Relaxer?” (Teen Vogue)

Week 5.
Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric (Graywolf, 2014), parts I-V, pages 5-79.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (Text Publishing, 2015)
Sofia Samatar, “Skin Feeling"
If possible, wikipedia entry on microagression (on forum)

Week 7.
Charles Duhigg, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets”;
Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on Societies of Control”;
Frank Pasquale, Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Society & Money (selections);
Antoinette Rouvroy, “The end(s) of critique: data-behaviourism vs. due-process”
Week 8.
Occupy Wall Street Videos (in-class viewing)
Week 9.
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso 2016)
Week 10.
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury 2017)

Lawrence term
Week 2.
Peter Frase, Four Futures (Verso 2016)
Week 3.
Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 (Orbit 2017)
Paul Mason, Part I, Part II: “Prophets of Postcapitalism,” and Part III: “Project Zero,” Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future (Penguin 2016)
Week 4.
Paulo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife (Orbit 2016)
Sasha Lilley, “Great Chaos Under Heaven”
Week 5.
Omar El Akkad, American War (Knopf 2017)
Wolfgang Streeck, “How Will Capitalism End?”
Week 7.
Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (Fourth Estate 2017)
from Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move (Verso 2016)
Week 8.
Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World (And Other Stories 2015)
from Thomas Nail, The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford UP 2015) and Theory of the Border (OUP 2016)
Week 9.
Chris Kraus, Summer of Hate (Semiotext(e)/Native Agents 2012)
Week 10.
Alex Rivera, dir., Sleep Dealer (Futuro Films 2008)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Acquire knowledge of key theoretical and literary concepts and of cultural and critical contexts within which to situate the set texts;
• Develop analytical and critical skills through close reading/viewing of the set texts;
• Adjust to scholarly standards and protocols of academic presentation;
• Explore methodologies for reading texts within the context of contemporary American cultures;
• Demonstrate a broad knowledge of selected texts and concepts relating to contemporary American cultural production;
• Indicate awareness of various critical, analytical and creative approaches to the production of knowledge about course content;
• Exhibit an effective command of written English together with a wide-ranging and accurate vocabulary;
• Show command of the protocols of textual analysis and critical argument;
• Conduct independent research through self-generated questions.

Subject specific skills

No subject specific skills defined for this module.

Transferable skills

No transferable skills defined for this module.