Literary value and 100 years of American literature

Education facts

Code: ENAL11

In this course, students read 20th-century American literature and discuss it in relation to various aspects of literary value. These aspects include, on the one hand, key issues in literary studies such as high/low culture, highbrow/middlebrow/lowbrow literature, the canon and the bestseller, tradition and experiment, convention and innovation, compliance and controversy, genius and celebrity, and, on the other, the literary properties and affordances of particular texts that can be seen as valuable in relation to historical and cultural contexts. What types of value does a literary text offer? Aesthetic value? Knowledge value? Emotional value? Social value? Economic value? Throughout the course, there is movement and interplay between theories of literary value, twentieth-century literary history, and specific literary texts. Instruction is in the form of seminars, for which students complete reading and writing assignments. Some texts are read by all students in preparation for seminars, and other relevant texts are selected by the students for their written and oral assignments. The course requires students to participate actively in seminars, which sometimes means mandatory oral presentations.

Entry requirements

90 ECTS credits including at least 30 ECTS credits at the G2F level in one of the main fields of study English, Comparative Literature, or Film Studies, and upper secondary level English 6 or English level 2, or equivalent.

Education offerings

Each offering has its own dates and conditions. Closed offerings are retained as history and do not mean that a new application is open.

• Literary value and 100 years of American literature

  Karlstad University

  Ortsoberoende

  Start date: 18 January 2027

  End date: 6 June 2027

  Pace of study: 25 %