ENGL 4910

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  • Schedule of Classes - February 7, 2022 7:27PM EST
  • Course Catalog - February 7, 2022 7:14PM EST

ENGL 4910
Honors Seminar I

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

The purpose of the Honors Seminar is to acquaint students with methods of study and research to help them write their senior Honors Essay. However, all interested students are welcome to enroll. The seminar will require a substantial essay that incorporates literary evidence and critical material effectively, and develops an argument. Topics and instructors vary each semester. For Fall 2021 the topic is: American Paranoia.

When Offered Fall.

Permission Note Enrollment preference given to: students in the Honors Program in English or related fields.

Distribution Category (ALC-AS)
Satisfies Requirement Either ENGL 4910 or ENGL 4920 is required for students pursuing an honors degree in English.

View Enrollment Information

Syllabi: none

  •   Regular Academic Session. 

  • 4 Credits Stdnt Opt

  • Topic: American Paranoia

  •  4943 ENGL 4910   SEM 101

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  • Instruction Mode: In Person
    This course will examine the "paranoid style" in contemporary American fiction and film. The paranoias and plots we will encounter vary considerably (personal paranoias, political conspiracies, governments turned enemy, surveillance technology run amok, apocalyptic-millennial paranoia). Yet when viewed together they seem to cohere as a distinct style within post-WWII American narrative. We will ask how paranoid style responds to the contemporary American context and how the fears dominating these narratives shape their aesthetic form. Why has paranoia arisen as such a distinctively American attitude? What is the paranoid afraid of? (Should we be paranoid, too?) Novels by Nabokov, Pynchon, Reed, Dick, DeLillo, Didion, Roth; films by Coppola, Romero, Bigelow, Baldwin.