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ENGLISH LITERATURE (L14)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2021
L14 E Lit 150First-Year Seminar: American Melodrama Then and Now; Or, Why People Read "Twilight"3.0 Units
Description:In American popular culture, melodrama seems to lurk everywhere we look. It's in the soap opera, the telenovela, the romantic comedy, the Western, the superhero genre, etc. So, how did we get to be so melodramatic? This course traces the melodramatic mode from the early nineteenth century--when melodrama first hit the American popular stage--to modern-day melodrama. Paying careful attention to melodrama's treatment of gender, race, sexuality, religion, and class, we will contemplate the ways in which the genre has evolved and the remarkable ways it has remained stagnant. For the first third of the semester, we will study how melodrama morphed into an unstoppable craze on the nineteenth-century stage through a careful examination of the "classical melodrama" archive, including texts like William Wells Brown's "The Escape," George Aiken's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Augustin Daly's "Under the Gaslight" (the first melodrama to have a character literally tied to the train tracks). At mid-semester, we will turn our attention to melodrama's twentieth-century afterlives. We will discuss melodramatic silent film, ask ourselves how the "woman's film" came into being as a melodramatic genre, and consider why the soap opera and the romance novel are typically gendered as feminine. In the last third of the semester, we will study the role of melodramatic adaptation and parody in more recent texts, which may include books, television, and films such as "Mulholland Drive," "Jane the Virgin," "Twilight," and "You." Throughout the semester, we will question why melodrama has long occupied a peripheral position in literary and cultural studies. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Attributes:A&S: FYSA&S IQ: HUMBU: ETHEN: H
Instruction Type:Hybrid Grade Options:CPA Fees:
Course Type:HomeSame As:L61 1501Frequency:None / History
SecDays       TimeBuilding / RoomInstructorFinal ExamSeatsEnrollWaits
01M-W----11:30A-12:50PRudolph / 203 SwansonNo Final15110
Desc:In person (remote welcome). Synchronous each meeting.
REG-DelayStart: 1/25/2021   End: 5/13/2021
Actions:BooksSyllabus
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