American Literary Reportage

elective courses

Classroom

This course explores American Literary Reportage and its close connection to the rapidly changing sociocultural and political landscape in the United States across the twentieth and twenty-first century.

This course explores American Literary Reportage and its close connection to the rapidly changing sociocultural and political landscape of the United States across the twentieth and twenty-first century. Examining the roots of this genre, we will analyze the emergence of the New Journalism literary movement and “gonzo journalism” in the 1960s and 1970s as manifested in the works of Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, or Michael Herr. We will ponder how New Journalism revolutionized the form of traditional reportage by integrating experimental literary techniques and how it affected the relationship between fact and fiction – or the “objective” and the “subjective” – when responding to American social and political reality. In the second part of this course, we will explore how American Reportage was evolving actress decades and how these changes were manifested in “New New Journalism” and “creative nonfiction” by Susan Orlean, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jessika Bruder, and Charlie LeDuff.

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem; Miami

Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; "The New Journalism" manifesto

Michael Herr, Dispatches

Hunter S. Thompson, The Gonzo Papers Anthology

Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

Charlie LeDuff, Detroit: An American Autopsy

Lisa Taddeo, Three Women

Jessika Bruder, Nomadland

Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration

The New New Journalism. Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on their Craft

Upon completion of this course, students:

KNOWLEDGE

- understand how the genre of American literary reportage evolved across decades

- know the major characteristics of American Literary reportage

- know the historical/literary/critical contexts from which the discussed works emerged

SKILLS

- are able to critically examine the relationship between reportage and American sociopolitical landscape

- can critically engage with such concepts as fact, objectivity, and representation

- display an increased fluency in close reading and textual analysis

- display an increased fluency in cultural readings of literary reportage

SOCIAL COMPETENCES

- can work in groups and discuss complex and controversial topics in the filed of American literature and culture in a respectful manner

- understand cultural, historical, and social significance of American literary reportage

All students must participate actively in the course, completing the assigned readings before they are scheduled to be discussed in class. Active class participation – which includes thorough preparation for every meeting, involvement in class discussions and seeking guidance from the instructor when necessary – is as significant for each student’s final grade as their written assignments. This means that students are expected to work for their final grade consistently throughout the semester.

The total percentage of each student’s final grade will be determined according to the following scale:

30% class participation

40% response papers and in-class presentations

30% final essay

Grading scale:

0-60 – 2

60-70 – 3

71-75 – 3,5

76-85 – 4

86-90 – 4,5

91-95 – 5

96-100 – 5!