Courses

In a culture that celebrates individualism and self-determination, American literature has often been a site for developing alternative conceptions of identity, beyond the ideology of human autonomy. This course focuses on the concept of relationality in contemporary literary texts, which posits that all human existence is inextricably interconnected with and shaped by the external world – both human and non-human. We will examine American fiction and nonfiction writing that embraces vulnerability, dependency, attachment, and solidarity and fosters a reorientation towards relational concepts of identity through both content and form. Relational psychoanalysis as well as philosophies of intersubjectivity and dialogism will serve as points of departure for analyzing the selected texts, especially as they create new possibilities for thinking about self-other relations. These theoretical models – from Hegel’s philosophy of self-consciousness to Glissant’s poetics of relationality – will offer a rich foundation for close readings of American prose narratives by Siri Hustvedt, Alison Bechdel, Maggie Nelson, Audre Lorde, Edwidge Danticat, and Richard Powers. Focusing on intersections of ethics and aesthetics across different genres, we will analyze how formal literary choices shape the encounter between author and reader.