LETTERATURA ANGLO-AMERICANACOMPARATA / COMPARATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE

Knowledge (contents)

Literary theory and criticism in the US (XX-XXI century).

Know-How (skills)

The practice of literary theory and criticism. Case study: a critical reading of the literary hoax, in relation with fake news and the “post-fact”.

Lectures, assignments, class discussion.

Module A

“Comparative Theory and Criticism in the USA”

Comparative study of some the leading theories and methodological approaches in contemporary literaty criticism as professed in the US Academy.

Module B

“Hoax, Fake News and Post-Fact between Science, History, (Auto-)Biography and Information”

Four literary hoaxers between xvii and xx century (Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Clifford Irving) and the “post-fact” between xx and xxi century (Alain Sokal and the Squared Sokal Hoax).

► Module A

1) Peter Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (4^th edition), Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2017.

2) One book, for choice, among the following:

Roland Barthes, S/Z. Paris, Seuils, 1970; Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics New York, Routledge, 1975; Harold Bloom, Paul De Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartmann, J. Hillis Miller, Deconstruction and Criticism, New York, Seabury Press, 1979; Gérard Genette, Seuils, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1987; Shoshana Feldman, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York, Routledge, 1992; Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, New York, Routledge, 1996; Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory; An Introduction, New York, New York University Press, 1996; Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, New York, Rootledge, 2005; John Frow, Genre, New York, Routledge, 2005; Ellen Rooney (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, New York, Routledge, 2011; Joni Adamson, William A. Gleason, David N. Pellow, Keywords for Environmental Studies, New York, New York University Press, 2016.

► Module B

Primary sources

A free choice of texts (at least three for each author, except for Irving, Sokal and Wilson, of which students will read only one text) among the following:

Benjamin Franklin

“The Silence Dogood Letters” (1722); “A Witch Trial at Mount Holly” (1730); “The Death of Titan Leeds” (1733); “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” (1747); “The Electric Kite” (1752); “A Letter to a Royal Academy” (1781); “Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle” (1782).

Edgar Allan Poe

“The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Phaall” (1835); “Maelzel’s Chess-Player” (1836); “The Balloon Hoax” (1844); “Mesmeric Revelation” (1844); “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845); “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” (1849).

Mark Twain

“The Petrified Man” (1862); “A Bloody Massacre Near Carson” (1863); “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865); “A Touching Story of George Washington’s Boyhood” (1867); 1601. Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. (1880); A Double-Barrelled Detective Story, cap. IV, “Incipit” (1901); “The Jumping Frog: In English, then in French, then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil” (1903).

Clifford Irving

Autobiograhy of Howard Hughes (New York, McGraw-Hill 1972, a book sent to pulp), in the .pdf edition made availabe by the author, 2006²; The Hoax, New York, Permanent Press, 1981.

Alain Sokal, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics”, Social Text, 46/47, Spring/Summer 1996, pp. 217-252

https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

Helen Wilson, “Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon”, Gender Place & Culture, 22 May 2018 (retracted by the publisher when finding out that it was a hoax)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cJLr_o04R-zpHcMNaIWPGs7Ue_i-tkCw

Secondary sources

Mandatory study of the following articles and essays:

On the Literary Hoax | B. McHale, “‘A Poet May Not Exist’: Mock-Hoaxes and the Construction of National Identity”, in The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. by R.J. Griffin, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 233-252; L. Rosson, “Brian McHale’s Literary Hoaxes”, The Busybody, November 1, 2005:

https://rossonl.wordpress.com/2005/11/01/brian-mchale-on-literary-hoaxes/

On Franklin | G. Del Guercio, “How Benjamin Franklin’s Dream Came True. The Origins of the American’s Dream in His Autobiograaphy”, Varsity Tutors:

https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-14/franklins-american-dream

J. Weinberger, “Benjamin Franklin and Fake News”, Hudson Institute, December 12, 2016;

https://www.hudson.org/research/13133-benjamin-franklin-and-fake-news

On Poe | T. Whalen, “Poe and the American Publishing Industry”, in A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. G. Kennedy, Oxford and New York, OUP, 2001, pp. 63-93; L. Walsh, “Poe’s Hoaxing and the Construction of Readerships”, in Sins Against Science. The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain, and Others, New York, State University of New York Press, 2006. pp. 51-119

On Mark Twain | B. Michelson, “Mark Twain and the Escape from Sense”, in Mark Twain on the Loose. A Comic Writer and the American Self, Amherst, University of Massachissets Press, 1995, pp. 1-37; L. Walsh, “Mark Twain and the Social Mechanics of Laughter”, in Sins Against Science. The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain, and Others, cit., pp. 121-171.

On Irving | K. Young, “Spruce Goose”, in Bunk. The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists. Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, Minneapolis, Gray Wolf, 2017, pp. 253-270; W. Grimes, “Clifford Irving, Author of a Notorious Literary Hoax, Dies at 87”, New York Times, December 20, 2017:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/obituaries/clifford-irving-author-of-a-notorious-literary-hoax-dies-at-87.html

On Sokal | Peter Barry, “The Sokal Affair”, in Beginning Theory, cit..

On the Squared Sokal Affair | Yascha Mounk, “What An Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia”, The Atlantic, October 5, 2018:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/

Zak Beauchamp, “The Controversy around hoax studies in critical theory, explained”, Vox, October 15, 2018:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/15/17951492/grievance-studies-sokal-squared-hoax

► Further readings

Students with little or no knowledge of the history of American Literature, or do not attend classes, or want to know more will find detailed information on the authors at the following links:

The Papers of Benjamin Franklin

https://franklinpapers.org/

The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

https://www.eapoe.org/index.htm

“Mark Twain”, Enciclopædia Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Twain

K. Kipling, “Behind the Fake: An Interview with Author Clifford Irving”, Sarasota Magazine, May 30, 2014

https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/arts-and-entertainment/2014/05/behind-fake-interview-author-clifford-irving

Extras

Suggested reading/consutation/vision — not mandatory — of the following articles and movies, plus Donna Campbell’s pages on American Literature:

D. Campbell, Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to

1920. http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/

Film with and on/Books by Clifford Irving

Clifford Irving, Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Orson Welles, F For Fake! (1973)

Lasse Hallström, The Hoax (2006).

Alain Sokal’s Hoax

B. Robbins, A. Ross, “Editorial Response to Sokal’s Hoax by the Editors of Social Texts” https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf

On Sokal | P. Barry, “The Sokal Affair”, in Beginning Theory, cit. (pp. 284-286)

The Sokal Squared Affair

Grievance Studies

https://peterboghossian.com/grievance-studies

The Squared Sokal Papers

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19tBy_fVlYIHTxxjuVMFxh4pqLHM_en18

Online access to Sources

Within the limits of fair use, the texts will be made available in .pdf on Studium.

Briefing Note on Copyright

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.