120132 AR Literature Course (interactive) - American/North American Lit./Studies (2011S)

The turn of the 21st century not only signals the beginning of the new millennium but also marks a renaissance of the historical novel. The new historical novel is an astounding amalgamation of a continuation of the long-standing tradition as well as an attempt at a radical innovation of the genre. The dominating number of new historical novels displays a 19th-century sujet, an era that has always fuelled the imagination of American writers of historical fiction. That this period dominates the American cultural memory is perhaps unsurprising, as it is viewed as a crucial period in the development of a national identity and also is the era in which the genre of the historical fiction found its way across the atlantic. In the new historical fiction the "maps and chaps version" of history has given way to an interest in social history and a revisionist rewriting of history. And while the new historical fiction on the one hand tends to certain nostalgia and offers a form of millennial escapism, the topics of the new historical fiction on the other hand have a lot of relevance for the present time. This class will, after the discussion of the perhaps most prominent example of the American historical novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), discuss new American historical fiction of the past fifteen years, among them historical biofiction, non-fiction novels, reanimated classics, historical crime fiction, and multi-time-level historical fiction. Time and availability permitting, screenings and discussions of filmic adaptations of further American and British new historical fiction such as The Hours and Possession might also be included.