1. A Learning Diary which comments upon 6 posts from the student’s contributions to the discussion forum, 1500 words (post word count not included). [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3 ] (20%)
2. Critical commentary, 2000 words, 30% (LOs 3, 5)
3. Essay, 4000 words, 60%, (LOs 1,2, 4, 5), or Portfolio of Creative Writing, 4000 words (60%)

F Scott Fitzgerald describes the way new writing is a response to literary and social convention at a time of crisis. For him, the writing of a new generation, able to challenge the traditions of the writers who have come before, is distinguished by a set of ideas, inherited in moderated form from ‘the madmen and the outlaws of the generation before’ and it ‘sprouts most readily from a time of stress and emergency’. This module will explore 3 key moments in the development of American writing in the 20th century. The first block will explore the emergence of what we now call Modernist writing, focusing on one major novel and how the forces of technological advances, industrialisation and urbanisation led to new surrealist modes of expression. The second block considers the emergence of Beat writing as a response to the conformities of the Cold War, and how radical modes of expression coupled with portrayals of non-conformist sexual practices, drug use and criminality changed literature and gave rise to the counter culture of the 60s. The third block will focus on the forces of commodification and communications technology on late 20th century literature and the emergence of postmodernism, before engaging with what is being seen as its successor by critics, neo-realism and the effects of 9/11 on 21st century writing.

Students will encounter radical works of literature, and contextualise them using critical and theoretical concepts which help us to understand the forces which shape new writing and the iconoclastic approaches of renegade writers.

The creative writing exercises are designed so that students can explore several essential narrative techniques. For example, workshops for creative writers will cover styles such as Modernism, Beat techniques, postmodernism and neo-realism.

Indicative Reading
Essential
Dos Passos (2000), John. Manhattan Transfer. London: Penguin.
Faulkner, William (1996). As I Lay Dying. London: Vintage.
Modern American Poetry website (http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/)
Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/)

Burroughs, William S. (2010). Naked Lunch. London: Fourth Estate.
Charters, Ann (2006). The Portable Beat Reader. London: Penguin.

Auster, Paul (2003). The Book of Illusions. London: Faber and Faber.
Jonathan Safran Foer (2006). Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. London: Penguin.

1. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the social and aesthetic processes that have given rise to new modes of poetic and fiction writing.
Knowledge and Understanding
Learning

2. Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the ways in which new writing challenges established literary conventions.
Knowledge and Understanding

3. Evaluate critical and theoretical positions which explain or illuminate the emergence of new modes of writing, in particular the nature of shifting cultural paradigms
Enquiry

4. Apply complex theoretical and critical concepts in the analysis of new modes of writing, employing concepts in an original way if current scholarship has not explored the area OR produce a piece of creative prose fiction/poetry which demonstrates applied knowledge of the new modes of writing studied on the module
Analysis
Problem Solving
Application
Reflection

5. Communicate the evaluation of critical/theoretical ideas and their application to new writing in a sustained argument and employing the appropriate critical vocabulary
Communication
Application

The 12 sessions will be grouped into 3 week blocks, each attending to the emergence of a new mode of writing. There will be 9 weeks of attention to 3 literary movements, 2 weeks spent on assessment skills and a review of the module materials (1 week).

Distance Learning Delivery:
Introductory essay per module bloc
20 minute lecture per week of video-recorded/narrated PowerPoint and media supported material
Guided reading per week
Discussion forum contributions
Coursework Guidance and feedback online

Blackboard
Lecture capture room
DL Pods in Mellor
JSTOR
MLA International database

Recommended and Background
Gay, Peter (2009). Modernism: the lure of heresy from Baudelaire to Beckett and beyond. London: Vintage
Walz, Robin (2013). Modernism. London: Routledge.

Chinitz, David E; McDonald, Gail (2014). A Companion to Modernist Poetry. Oxford: Wiley
Nadel, Ira Bruce (1999). The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. Cambridge: CUP.

Bloom, Clive; Docherty, Brian (1995). American Poetry: the modernist ideal. Basingstoke: Macmillan

Peabody, Richard (1997). A Different Beat: writings by women of the beat generation. London: Serpent's Tail.
Johnson, Ronna; Grace, Nancy McCampbell (2002). Girls Who Wore Black: women writing the Beat generation. London: Rutgers University Press.
Myrsiades, Kostas (2002). The Beat Generation: critical essays. New York: Peter Lang.
Stephenson, Gregory (2009). The Daybreak Boys: Essays on the Literature of the Beat Generation. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Brooker, Peter (ed). Modernism/Postmodernism. Harlow: Longman.
Berman, Marshall (1983). All That is Solid Melts into Air. London: Verso.
Lee, A. Robert (1996). The Beat Generation Writers. London: Pluto.
Phillips, Lisa (1995). Beat Culture and the New America, 1950-1965. New York: Whitney Museum.
Journal of American Studies (ProQuest)
Skerl, Jennie (1985). William S. Burroughs. Boston: Twayne.

Rudrum, D and Stavris, N (ed.s) (2015). Supplanting the Postmodern. London: Bloomsbury.
Jameson, F (1991). Postmodernism Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London: Verso.
McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge.
Whaley, Preston (2009). Blows Like A Horn: Beat Writing, Jazz, Style, and Markets in the Transformation of U.S. Culture. Cambridge, MA, Harvard UP.