History and Memory in Contemporary American Fiction

History and Memory in Contemporary American Fiction is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies class taught by J. Skerrett.

Course Description
In the face of the uncertainties and mendacities of post-modern life, the struggle for integrity often draws writers to cultural traditions that can be constructed or reconstructed on human rather than institutional terms. In the resulting works of art, mergers of identity and history are often achieved through the use of myth, storytelling rituals, and varieties of memory (personal, mythic, cultural, "racial") that refute, resist or complement the official or institutional ?master narratives. After considering some ideas about memory, we will examine works that reflect its use in literature, from Proustian subjective memory to collective memory and cultural politics. Probable reading (subject to change): Ernest Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Joy Kogawa, Obasan, Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, Lee Smith, Oral History, Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl, James Welch, Fools Crow, Singh, Skerrett & Hogan, eds., Memory and Cultural Politics, essays and excerpts from other critical writings. Books will be ordered at Amherst Books.