Ateneo - UPO

The integrated course provides a coherent introduction to the plurality of literary and cultural traditions of the English-speaking world through two complementary modules. The first examines key moments in the literary and cultural history of the United States, from the colonial period to the twentieth century and the Civil Rights era. The second focuses on representations of the British Empire and on the colonial and postcolonial responses produced in colonies, former colonies, and migrant and diasporic communities.
The course is organised around the relationship between literary forms and historical change. Through the study of short fiction, poetry, autobiography, drama, political writings, and critical essays, it addresses the construction and contestation of national and imperial identities, processes of racialisation, gender dynamics, cultural displacement, and the reinvention of the English language.
The comparative approach encourages students to consider American and postcolonial literatures not as separate fields, but as interconnected traditions shaped by processes of expansion, domination, resistance, and the redefinition of belonging. Particular attention is devoted to voices that challenge dominant narratives and to the linguistic, rhetorical, and stylistic strategies through which literary texts articulate counter-memories and new forms of subjectivity.

The primary texts listed in the Detailed Course Content section constitute an integral and compulsory part of the examination syllabus and must be read in the original language. The readings and accompanying critical materials will be made available on the DIR platform.
General reference works for the North American Literature module:
Maria Cristina Iuli and Paola Loreto, eds., La letteratura degli Stati Uniti dal Rinascimento Americano ai nostri giorni, Rome: Carocci, 2024.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, most recent available edition, as a general reference anthology.
Donatella Izzo, Letteratura degli Stati Uniti d’America, vols. 1 and 2, Milan: Le Monnier, 2026.
Oliviero Bergamini, Storia degli Stati Uniti, Bari: Laterza, 2002.
General reference works for the Literatures of English-Speaking Countries module:
Paul Poplawski, English Literature in Context, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.
Philippa Levine, The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset, 3rd ed., Routledge, 2020.
Ashley Jackson, The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

The course is consistent with the specific educational objectives of the Degree Program in Modern Foreign Languages, which include the acquisition of advanced linguistic and literary competences in the languages studied, as well as the ability to read and critically interpret literary texts within their historical and cultural contexts.
The course’s foundational learning objectives are:
1. to provide an introductory overview of American literature from the colonial period to the twentieth century; to outline the history of the British Empire and decolonisation, together with the main lines of development of postcolonial literatures;
2. to understand the relationships between literary production and its historical, geographical, social, political, and gender-related contexts;
3. to identify the formal, thematic, and stylistic features of the genres, authors, and literary movements examined in the two modules.
The course’s more advanced learning objectives are:
1. to conduct independent analyses of narrative, poetic, dramatic, autobiographical, and argumentative texts in English, identifying their themes, rhetorical strategies, uses of language, and relationships with their contexts;
2. to establish critical connections between different areas of the English-speaking world, identifying continuities, divergences, and processes of hybridisation, appropriation, and linguistic reinvention.

No specific requirement. Cultural and linguistic competence in L1 as certified by high school diploma. B1 level of English

Within the overall 12 ECTS credits, 60 hours are devoted to in-person teaching, distributed across the two semesters and organised into weekly thematic units. Lectures are complemented by interactive learning activities, seminar discussions, close-reading exercises, short written assignments, collaborative presentations, and the use of multimedia resources, including videos and audio recordings of poetry. The remaining workload is devoted to guided independent study through the individual reading and analysis of the texts included in the syllabus.

Classes and assigned readings are conducted in English. The syllabus is the same for attending and non-attending students.
Students with physical disabilities, Learning Disabilities or Special Education Needs can request specific services and tools via the Staff Sviluppo e Coordinamento Carriere e Servizi alle Studentesse e agli Studenti, consulting the University webpage: https://www.uniupo.it/en/services/services-students-physical-or-learning-disabilities Students with disabilities, learning disabilities or special education needs, once they have contacted the University Staff, can refer to the tutor in charge of the course to define the examination modalities, concerning academic aspects.

Assessment is organised around the examinations prescribed for the two modules, which are conceived as complementary components of the integrated course. To pass the integrated examination, students must achieve a satisfactory mark in both modules. The final mark is determined jointly by the instructors and gives equal weight to the results obtained in each module.
Overall assessment criteria
27-30: Excellent knowledge of the principal developments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Anglophone literatures; excellent historical and literary contextualisation; thorough knowledge of the primary texts and highly developed analytical skills; excellent command of written English. Honours will be awarded for the ability to engage with the topics in a personal and critically informed manner and to pursue individual areas of inquiry independently, including beyond the material covered in class and specified in the examination syllabus.
23-26: Good command of the principal developments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Anglophone literatures; effective historical and literary contextualisation; adequate knowledge of the primary texts and sound analytical skills; appropriate command of written English.
18-22: Incomplete, imprecise, or predominantly mnemonic knowledge of the syllabus; superficial knowledge of the primary texts and limited textual analytical skills; inability to move beyond plot summary when discussing literary works; limited command of written English.
Fail: Inability to engage meaningfully with the assigned material; absence of textual analysis; inability to construct a coherent and logically organised argument; inappropriate use of language.

PART I - North American Literature
Week 1 - The Geohistory of the United States and the Foundations of Political Thought.
Readings: The Declaration of Independence; Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing”; Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”
Week 2 - Moral Myth and Madness.
Readings: the Salem witch trials (Cotton Mather); Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “Learning to Read” and “The Slave Mother”; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (excerpts); Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (excerpts).
Week 3 - Herman Melville, Benito Cereno.
Week 4 - Emily Dickinson, “Color - Caste - Denomination” and other poems; Mark Twain, “A True Story, Word for Word as I Heard It”; Kate Chopin, “Désirée’s Baby.”
Week 5 - Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”; Modernism: William Faulkner, “Dry September.”
Week 6 - Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers”; Modernist poetry and William Carlos Williams (guest lecture).
Week 7 - Arthur Miller, The Crucible.
Week 8 - Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun; James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues.”
PART II - Literatures of English-Speaking Countries
Weeks 1-2 - Introduction: Geopolitical, Historical, and Theoretical Contexts.
Readings: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, excerpts from Decolonising the Mind; Salman Rushdie, excerpts from “Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exist”; Kamau Brathwaite, “Nation Language”; Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight”; De Souza, “De Souza Prabhu”; Grace Nichols, “Wherever I Hang”; Kofi Awoonor, “The Weaver Bird”; John Agard, “Listen Mr Oxford Don.”
Weeks 3-4 - The Nineteenth Century, the Empire, and Its Representations.
Readings: Paul Poplawski, “Postcolonial Literature in English”; Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” and “The Man Who Would Be King”; Doris Lessing, “The Old Chief Mshlanga.”
Week 5 - The Colonial Experience.
Readings: Katherine Mansfield, “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”; Witi Ihimaera, “The Affectionate Kidnappers”; Jean Rhys, “The Day They Burned the Books.”
Weeks 6-7 - Diaspora and Migration.
Readings: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, “Clothes”; Salman Rushdie, “The Courter.”
Weeks 7-8 - The Colonial Legacy.
Readings: Chinua Achebe, “Girls at War”; Nadine Gordimer, “Amnesty.”

To achieve the knowledge, competences, and skills corresponding to the foundational level, students are expected to demonstrate the following:
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: knowledge of the principal phases, authors, and movements of American literature from the colonial period to the twentieth century; a basic knowledge of the history of the British Empire, colonisation and decolonisation, postcolonial literary history, and postcolonial theory; an understanding of the relationships between texts, contexts, and historical processes within the broader Anglophone world.
SKILLS: the ability to read, interpret, and evaluate literary works from the Anglo-American tradition on the basis of textual evidence, identifying their themes, rhetorical strategies, linguistic features, and historical-literary contexts.
TRANSFERABLE SKILLS: the ability to present knowledge, information, and opinions relating to the topics covered clearly and effectively in English, using appropriate language and terminology.
To attain an advanced level, students must demonstrate the ability to compare authors, texts, periods, and different literary traditions critically, identifying continuities and divergences among national constructions, imperial representations, and colonial and postcolonial counter-discourses.