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F. Scott Fitzgerald proposed that personality might be "an unbroken series of successful gestures." Is there more to the self than the style that characterizes it? Can style--in particular, literary style--be a means
of
self-realization? This course will explore these questions and also examine the different ways that style can position the individual within a community. A person can claim membership in a group through adopting a
style;
or he or she can use a style to demonstrate his or her singularity and difference. Authenticity can be taken as proof that one is a responsible moral being--but who gets to decide what the markers of authenticity
are?
We
will begin with a study of Flaubert's MADAME BOVARY, a book whose heroine sets the high water mark for inauthenticity in modern literature. We will read some central texts of existentialist philosophy, including works
by
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. The main section of the course will focus on existentialism's influence on American literary and political culture in the 1950s and early 1960s; we will read the work of poets,
novelists
and critics grappling with questions of style and authenticity. The course will conclude with a reconsideration of the postmodern and its purported emphasis on style without depth.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459