Blended Learning: The Great American Novel

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TU Dresden | Wintersemester 2019 / 2020 Blended Learning: The Great American Novel

When Time magazine celebrated the publication of Jonathan Franzen’s fourth book Freedom in
August 2010, it featured the mid-western author on the cover alongside the headline: “Great
American Novelist.” In the feature, book critic Lev Grossman asserts that instead of exploring
individual voices and specific ethnic communities, Freedom combines the supposedly
quintessential qualities of a Great American Novel: “Instead of subcultures, it’s about the culture” (Time 2010, emphasis added). Born in the wake of the Civil War and dismissed by many critics of the mid-twentieth century as an anachronistic pipe dream, the concept of the Great American Novel indeed remains, as the Time vividly illustrates, alive today. Grossman’s article is echoed by blogs and online articles that offer ‘Top Ten’ lists, debate whether the Great American Novel still exists, whether it ever really existed in the first place, and which books can be considered “G.A.N.s,” a nickname for the literary category first used by Henry James.


This course traces the formal and thematic developments of the G.A.N. and focuses on its
engagement with American history and identity. A principle goal of this class is to practice and
advance the skills acquired in the introductory course to literary studies. To do so, we will analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Phillip Roth’s American Pastoral. In an exemplary fashion, we will examine these three books as historical imprints of the G.A.N., from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its heydays, its alleged ends, and its afterlife at the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. We will consider the books’ contemporary environments (literary, geographical, political, etc.) and critically discuss the public and academic discourses that have followed their publications up to and including today.

Please note: This seminar is designed as a blended learning seminar and consists of several
online tasks and two longer weekend sessions. The online material and tasks will guide you in
your reading, provide you with further context on the assigned texts, and give you the chance to
engage with each other independent of when and where you decide to log in.


Required Reading
The Scarlet Letter, A Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne (ISBN-10: 1512090565)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (ISBN-10: 0241965675)
American Pastoral by Phillip Roth (ISBN-10: 0099771810)

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