Books
Most of the books on the course (see OCASYS) can be purchased in any unabridged form in paper or for e-reader. Note that Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America is in two parts, but we will only look at the first of these, Millennium Approaches (1991).
The only thing that has to be purchased in a specific edition is:
Robert S. Levine et al. eds., The Norton Anthology of American Literature: 1945 to the Present. 10th ed. W. W. Norton, 2022. This is a single volume (Book E of a series A-E). You do not need any of the other volumes. This is available in e-book form direct from W. W. Norton (you may need a specific kind of tablet).
Syllabus
The following texts are in the books you have to purchase, are available online through the library, or will be supplied in class. It will allow you to do some advance reading and give you an idea of the works we will discuss. It is not a final list.
Drama | Tony Kushner, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches; Harold Pinter, The Homecoming; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night.
Prose | Pat Barker, Regeneration; Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and ‘Precious Artefact’; Ralph Ellison, from Invisible Man; James Baldwin, ‘Going to Meet the Man’; George Saunders, ‘CivilWarLand in Bad Decline’.
Poetry by | Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, John Berryman, Emma Lazarus, Gwendolyn Brooks, Louise Erdrich, Robert Hayden, Thom Gunn, Robert Lowell.
These three texts have been filmed. Dick’s novel has appeared as Blade Runner (twice). Kushner’s play was turned into an excellent TV series starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson. It may be less confusing if you do not see any of these just before the course begins! They diverge significantly from their originals.
On the other hand, staged versions of the plays on the course are also available in various places (DVD; online, usually behind a paywall), and looking at these can be very useful.
Supplementary Information 