ENGL 052B. U.S. Fiction, 1945 to the Present

We’ll look at major authors and emerging figures, with attention to innovations in the novel as a literary form and the ways in which writers engage with their historical context, both within the U.S. and globally. Highsmith, Baldwin, Hemingway, and McCarthy, in different ways, introduce themes of gender roles, sexuality, and politics that will be taken up by a host of later works, including Marshall, Díaz, and Belleza. Both McCarthy’s and Wolitzer’s novels follow a group of young adult friends (Vassar students from the 1930s and summer arts camp friends from the 1970s) into their older adult lives-personal stories of friendship and betrayal, but also stories of the nation’s changes. Near the end of the semester, the YA [young adult genre] author Rhoda Belleza and her editor, Swarthmore grad Tiffany Liao, will visit Swarthmore to discuss Belleza’s new novel Empress of a 1000 Skies, which we’ll read. (If you liked the most recent Star Wars reinventions, you should really enjoy this work.)
20th/21st c.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Fall 2024. Schmidt.
Catalog chapter: English Literature
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature

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