ENG Free topic 1-3: Blur and System: Genre in Twenty-First-Century U.S. Fiction and Film

This MA course examines dominant themes in twenty-first-century U.S. fiction and film through the lens of genre. We focus specifically on questions related to gender, sexuality, race, and immigration, looking at how these themes are articulated through genres such as the gothic, the historical novel, speculative fiction, trauma fiction, and the neo-slave narrative.   

We will open the course by considering critic Anna Kornbluh’s claim that contemporary fiction is committed to “genre-blurring”: that genre has become less of a prominent structuring force in recent literary history. In its place, Kornbluh argues, hybrid genres such as autofiction have triumphed. And yet, another prominent critic, Mark McGurl, has made the case in Everything and Less (2021) that genre is more important than ever: McGurl points to the commercial importance of genre for “the novel in the age of Amazon,” and the role of literary fiction in a “genre system.” 

We will consider arguments about genre by Kornbluh, McGurl, and other critics as we attempt to discern the key characteristics of genre in contemporary U.S. fiction. For example, reading Ling Ma’s Severance (2018) and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2011), we will note the emergence of speculative fiction featuring zombies. Meanwhile, reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) and Torrey Peters’ Detransition Baby (2021), we will explore the queering of the Bildungsroman and the marriage plot. We will assess too how African American writers including Whitehead (The Underground Railroad, 2016), Robert Jones (The Prophets, 2021), Jesmyn Ward (Let Us Descend, 2023), and Percival Everett (James, 2024) have extended the development of the “neo-slave narrative”— already a prominent genre within African American fiction in the late twentieth-century — in new (queer, surreal, and spiritual) directions. The course will also attend to the recent emergence of the “New Black Gothic” in African American literature and film: examples here include Jordan Peele’s films Get Out (2017) and Us (2019), Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), and Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners (2025).

Drawing on secondary sources focused on contemporary genre by scholars including Kornbluh, McGurl, Alexander Manshel, Sheri-Marie Harrison, and Sara Brouillette, this course ultimately makes the case that considering the significance of genre is crucial to the study of U.S. fiction and film today.