North American Literature II

Code:

MEAAM016

Acronym:

LNA2

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	American Literature

Instance: 2025/2026 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Anglo-American Studies
Course/CS Responsible:	Masters in Anglo-American Studies

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MEAA	10	MEAA - Study Plan	1	-	9	60	243

Teaching language

English

Objectives

The aim of this course is to address the literary production in the United States of America in the period spanning from the end of World War II to the early twenty-first century, by examining the question “Who Sings the Nation-State?”. A selection of poets and novelists will be studied both on their own terms and in relation to key topics in the history of post-war North-American literature and culture, such as the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s liberation movements, the anti-war protests, the emergence of pop culture, and the rise of the U.S. as a global superpower. The verb “to sing” in the question “Who sings the nation-state?” may refer not only to forms of public protest and celebration, but also to forms of aesthetic adherence or resistance to hierarchic and monolithic understandings of culture, literature, and society. The course structure will,thus, lead students to find critical answers to the starting question, by understanding the power dynamics and historical tensions that characterize the liminal space of postwar American literature.

 

Learning outcomes and competences

 By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• better understand North-American literary, historical, and social contexts from the 1950s to the 2020s;
• expand their knowledge on a selection of North-American authors and their literary or artistic work;
• apply new methodologies and areas of research, drawing upon both primary and secondary sources;
• discuss how American literature examines issues of Americana, such as immigration and assimilation, narratives of resistance, narratives of slavery, and the consequences of race, class, gender, and religion divides;
• develop the ability to reflect on and critically think about literature and the world from different perspectives;
• communicate effectively about these topics in both writing and speech, drawing upon critical studies.

Working method

Presencial

Program

UNIT 1: WHO THINKS THE NATION-STATE?
1.1. Patterns of change (1950s-2020s)
1.2. Framing the frames: on frontiers, borders and belongings
1.3. Dreams deferred: assimilation, resistance and the exercise of freedom

UNIT 2: POETICS OF DISSENT AND REVOLUTION
2.1. Of birds and other (h)owls: Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation
2.2. And the caged birds sing: Adrienne Rich’s writing as “re-vision” and resistance

UNIT 3: NARRATIVES OF BELONGING, NON-BELONGING, AND CONFLICT
3.1. “Unspeakable things unspoken”: Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987)
3.2. “Do I look like a real American?”: Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2020)

 

Mandatory literature

Toni Morrison; Beloved. ISBN: 0-452-26136-8
Ocean Vuong; On Earth we.re briefly gorgeous. ISBN: 978-1-529-11068-5
Allen Ginsberg; Howl and other poems. ISBN: 0-87286-017-5
Adrienne Rich; The Fact of a Doorframe: Selected Poems 1950-2001, W.W. Norton, 2002. ISBN: 978-0-393-32395-5

Complementary Bibliography

Homi K. Bhabha; Nation and narration. ISBN: 0-415-01483-2
Jeannette Ryley; Understanding Adrienne Rich, University of South California, 2016. ISBN: 9781611176995
Justine Tally; The^Cambridge companion to Toni Morrison. ISBN: 9780521861113
Steven Belleto; The Cambridge Companion to the Beats, Cambridge University Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-107-18445-9
Judith Butler; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Who Sings the Nation-state? Language, Politics, Belonging, Seagull, 2007. ISBN: 1905422571
Gloria Anzaldúa; Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Aunt Lute Books, 1987. ISBN: 1879960125
Ana Manzanas, Jesús Benito Sanchez; Cities, Borders and Spaces in Intercultural American Literature and Film, Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9781138849662
Craig Svonkin, Steven Gould Axelrod; The Bloomsbury Handbook of Contemporary American Poetry, Bloomsbury, 2023. ISBN: 9781350062511
Crystal Parikh, ‎ Daniel Y. Kim; The Cambridge Companion to Asian American Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9781107095175

Comments from the literature

N.B.: In addition to the works mentioned in the Mandatory Literature, a selection of poems and essays will be made available in class. 

Additional references will also be provided in the course of the semester.

Teaching methods and learning activities

Fifteen weekly sessions on a seminar basis

keywords

Humanities > Literature > Literary criticism
Humanities > Literature > American literature

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Participação presencial	50,00
Trabalho escrito	50,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	35,00
Frequência das aulas	45,00
Trabalho de investigação	163,00
Total:	243,00

Eligibility for exams

a) active participation in seminar sessions (attendance; active participation in large or small group discussion; elaboration of short assignments or "reaction papers", and in-class writing exercises);
b) an oral presentation on a specific topic, under the guidance and with the agreement of the course lecturer;
c) a paper to be presented and discussed at the end of the semester.


Students must attend 75% of all seminar sessions

Calculation formula of final grade

The evaluation will be the result of the weighted average of 2 components, both compulsory:

a) active participation in seminars and oral presentation discussed during the semester -50%;
b) written essay to be discussed at the end of the semester - 50%

Weighted average: active participation: 50% + Written essay: 50%

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable

Internship work/project

Not applicable

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

The Special Assessment (provided for in Article 14 of the FLUP Assessment Regulations), aimed at "students holding special status, namely those covered by the status of Association Leader, Student-Athlete, Student-Firefighter, Military student, National Team Athlete student, High Performance Sports Practitioner or Worker student" (Article 14, point 1), will have 2 assessment components:

 a) 50% oral presentation (video recording) submitted via Moodle
b) 50% written essay and discussion (submitted via Moodle; discussion via Zoom)

Classification improvement

Only the Final Essay can be subject to improvement of classification.