gb - Englisches Seminar - Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Text: The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Poems, Tales, Essays and
Reviews, ed. David Galloway, (Penguin Classics)
LN: scholarly paper or final „Klausur“
050 645 Steinhoff
American Teen: Coming of Age in American Youth Literature and Film, 4 CP
2 st. do 12-14 GB 03/42
Since Mark Twain’s young protagonist Huckleberry Finn lit “out for the territory” in the
by now canonical coming-of-age novel of the same name (1885), juvenile Americans
have been setting out on their own passages from child- to adulthood in various
literary and filmic productions. They struggle through high school, experience drugs,
sex, love and violence; they develop, transform or stagnate – and as representations
of the American teen they populate the pages and images of contemporary fiction
and cinema.
In this seminar, we will first familiarize ourselves with both the historical roots as well
as the major theories of the significance of ‘youth’ in American literature and culture
and then analyze its representation in contemporary young adult fiction and film.
From a Cultural Studies perspective we will look at a variety of texts from different
media and genres (e.g. realist literature, teen science fiction, high school movies),
examining how these selected narratives construct the teenager and his/her world in
terms of gender, sexuality, ‘race’/ethnicity, class, age and nationality. Questions that
we will address are: What do these texts tell us about what it means to “grow up” in
the contemporary United States? What are the discourses negotiated and
(re)produced in these texts? What are their ideological and cultural functions and
how can these narratives be situated in a broader context (and canon) of American
literature, cinema, and culture?
Required reading: In this seminar we will read two novels, as well as theoretical,
historical and other fictive texts (provided via Blackboard).
Required viewing: In this seminar we will analyze a number of films, which need to
be watched by all students before the respective seminar. Dates for film screenings
will be arranged in the first session.
Requirements (CP): regular attendance, active participation, written assignments,
final paper/exam.
Students who take this course as a Cultural Studies seminar need to have passed
the “Introduction to Cultural Studies”.