Selected Topics in American Literature: Power and Horror of Performance

Catalog description

In this course, we will explore how American writers depict actors, singers, con artists, demagogues, and ordinary people trying to present their preferred images of themselves in different contexts. We will examine fiction, poetry, and film, paying special attention to what such depictions of performers accomplish in these texts. In some, they may undermine the supposed stability of gender, class, and racial identities or unmask the brutality of market economies.