Academics:
American Writers in Paris (Litr. 100/479/480/592) 3 credit hours
Lit 100 fulfils General Education Requirements for Global Awareness.
All credit levels qualify for Learning Beyond the Classroom credit.
Course Description:
The city of Paris and its volatile history has been a source of inspiration to American politicians, writers and artists since the founding of our nation. Thomas Paine developed his theories of modern democracy in Paris; Thomas Jefferson served as Ambassador there before becoming President of the United States. Nineteenth-century abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe found inspiration for their anti-slavery writing in the City of Light. Other celebrated American writers, notably Edgar Allen Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and Edith Wharton were also deeply influenced by their time in Paris.
At the close of the First World War, however, Paris became a site of American literary and cultural rebellion when groups of artists, both African American and white, began to settle in the city. The “Lost Generation” of writers, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald and their contemporaries, set up shop in the cafes of Montparnasse, while black musicians brought American jazz to the clubs of Montmartre. These two groups challenged received notions about race, social class and the purpose of literature and music, becoming major voices in Modernism and changing the way that the world perceived artistic production.
This course is designed as an intense study-abroad experience for undergraduates, graduate students and teachers interested in the literary production of twentieth century American writers who spent a year or more in Paris, France. This on-site, three-credit course will provide students with the opportunity to learn about major literary developments such as Modernism, Dada, Imagism and the African American expatriate movement, while visiting the museums and historical sites that inspired them. “American Writers in Paris” will focus on writing by authors such as Edith Whatron, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Chester Himes.
Readings: Students will read selected chapters from the required books to familiarize themselves on both the history of Paris as a locus of literary production and the authors who lived and wrote there.
Presentations: Each student will select an author from a list of approved writers and prepare a presentation, to be delivered on site, on the role of Paris in the selected author’s life and writing.
Journal: Each student will keep a journal detailing the study-abroad experience, to be turned in at the end of class. Questions for consideration will be provided by the professor as writing prompts. Each journal entry should be comprised of at least two pages of writing.
Research Paper: Students will develop a research paper (length: 15 pages / undergraduate credit; 20 pages / graduate credit, citing at least six sources) on the authors and literary movements covered in the course. Students will submit individual paper topics to the professor for approval. All papers must be handed in by Friday, July 25 th .
Extra credit: Students may submit original works of art, photography and literature inspired by the course for additional credit.
For More Information Contact :
Dr. Heather Neff
Department of English Language and Literature
E-mail:
heather.neff@emich.edu
Or contact:
- Academic Programs Abroad
- 103 Boone Hall
- Eastern Michigan University
- Ypsilanti, MI 48197
- Telephone: 734.487.2424 or 800.777.3541
- fax: 734.487.4377
- E-mail:Programs Abroad
