ENG Free topic 1-3: Dreaming America in the Third Millennia

This course takes literary, cultural, historical, and social approaches in scrutinizing the American condition in the first quarter century of the 21^st century. The course builds off two distinct yet complementary angles of approach.

Inge Birgitte Siegumfeldt’s section considers prominent themes and turns in twenty-first century American fiction and film with special focus on the impact of hope, dreams, visions for the general and the specific, the local and the global. This part of the course will provide keys to understanding literary and cultural dimensions of America in the present through the study of verbal and visual works by such writers and film makers as Nicole Krauss, Paul Auster, Joy Harjo, Barbara Kingsolver, Sean Penn and Martin Scorsese.

Joe Goddard’s section scrutinizes the idea of the American dream and its relevance as an explanatory tool.  As Jim Cullen writes, the ubiquity of the American Dream draws its strength from an idea that holds both contemporary roots and historical foundations. Contrastingly, Robert Puttnam strongly refutes the pertinence of the dream in the US over the last generation, asking “what has happened to the land of opportunity?” Richard Reeves counters that a dream of generational betterment is alive and kicking: for Americans who possess the educational and economic capital. Mathew Desmond concurs, arguing that the dream is not accessible for the most precariously living majority of Americans.

So, how prevalent and binding is the notion of the American Dream: as a political, social, economic, and cultural factor influencing thought and behavior? Is the dream accessible? Does it/did it ever even make sense to talk of American dreams—singular or plural—given the massive and multidimensional levels of polarization wracking the nation? These and related issues will be discussed in class.