LIT 2000 Spring 2024

This course will explore the literature of the self in post-World War II fiction (1950 -- present). The question of selfhood — or "who am I?"—is a question that has puzzled human beings since Ancient Greece (and much longer). Even nowadays, the question remains persistently knotted and intractable. For example: in 2016, when responding to whether more empathy can solve political injustice, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek replied: "I don't even understand myself; how can I understand you?"

Luckily, literature has much to offer the question of selfhood in the way of characters and stories. Is it any coincidence that the "self" is often called a "fiction?" An "illusion?" In this class, we will turn our eye towards the fictional depictions of the self in literature and think about how it informs our understanding of who we are; of whether we are deep down, as the Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter argues, "a storytelling species."

We will examine literary techniques and strategies used to construct the self in literature, and we will use foundational critical theories to guide our understanding of selfhood including: psychoanalysis, feminism, deconstructionism, Marxism, queer theory, and post colonial theory.

This course introduces students to key terminology, concepts, and methodologies for the study of complex literature. The course provides a groundwork in literary types for non-majors and is also strongly recommended as preparation for upper-level (3000- or 4000-level) coursework in the field.