ENG 331-01 - Studies in American Prose II

4 credits (Spring)

When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it ushered in a new age of apocalyptic fear. Since then, American writers have turned to the apocalypse to express their anxieties about more than nuclear weapons. From Christian visions of the rapture to climate change, from race riots to the AIDS epidemic, Americans have been compelled by fantasies of the end of the world. This course asks: why? What drives writers to imagine the apocalypse? Is it easier today, as is sometimes said, to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? How does apocalyptic writing open new ways of understanding the times we live in? What does literary apocalyptic writing offer in a time of neoliberalism? To explore these questions, we will read a broad spectrum of post-World War II apocalyptic texts by writers such as James Baldwin, Tony Kushner, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Margaret Atwood, along with recent apocalyptic manifestos about capitalism and climate change.

Prerequisite: ENG 227, ENG 228, ENG 229, ENG 231, ENG 232, or ENG 273.
Instructor: Sinykin