Module description
In the last decade a peculiar phenomenon has emerged from out of the depths of the collective unconscious into the mainstream: wokeness. Whether avidly endorsed or angrily derided, viewed as the key to a more equitable world or a threat to free speech, people generally agree that its origins lie in America and that its main purveyors are those who study the humanities. In this, it's a category that offers an interesting prompt to thought for students of literature who want to study the United States...
New as it might seem, "wokeness," in various forms and guises, in different modes and under alternative names, has not only been a consistent feature of American culture but also at the core of debates surrounding what is valuable in its culture. Indeed, if one defines "wokeness" as, broadly, a commitment to politics first and foremost in the creation, remembering, and analysis of art, there is an argument to be made that it is, in fact, the central tenet of US culture and simultaneously its major fault-line, even if there are more specific genealogies of it to be explored.
This module explores the collision between “wokeness” in its changing personages and American culture. It will journey from America’s foundation to the present day to stage the coming together of often radical, marginal, identitarian political programmes and US culture in all its forms. It will cover, too, how these debates have infused the construction of the American canon, including the changing statuses (upwards and downwards) of the texts that we discuss.
The trip we take will analyse particular crisis points and emblematic texts in the political history of American culture. The diverse materials covered might well include debates about the propaganda content of Early American literature, abolitionist desires to use literature as a weapon, utopian novels, revolutionary proletarian writing, African Americans in the 1920s searching for post-racial imaginaries, the problems posed by canonical fictions, censorship, banned books, feminist fantasias, Civil Rights insurrectionists, Native American revolutionaries, angry queers, red pill-ers, right up to the artistic expressions of Black Lives Matter.
We will not only be looking to create an archaeology of wokeness in so doing, but also to engage one of the most current real world debates about the function of works of the American imagination. All of this means that we will together reflect critically about what our own opinions are concerning the best relationship between politics, art, and expression in the Americas and beyond.
Assessment details
2500 word coursework essay (85%), 3 forum entries (max 500 words overall) (15%)