California Here We Come? - The Golden State in Novels of the Millennium - Einzelansicht

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California occupies a prominent place in the public imagination, whether in the USA or abroad be it for its Indigenous population, its history as part of a Spanish colony and then a Mexican territory, its (misleading and politically charged) symbolic value as the end of expansion for the USA, for the Gold Rush, the 1960s, the Black Panthers, the Occupation of Alcatraz, for LA and Hollywood, for San Francisco and Silicon Valley, for Death Valley and the Yosemite National Park, for Arnold Schwarzenegger, for countless songs, movies, and novels. This course will examine different depictions of the golden state from relatively contemporary novels - as the site for California Dreaming (whatever that means), for resistance, for individualism, for counterculture, for immigration, for discrimination, for gentrification, for pollution, for crime and for violence.

Participants are required to read four novels:

Butler, Parabels of the Sower

Beatty, The White Boy Shuffel

Tan, Joy Luck Club

Boyle, Tortilla Curtain OR Viramontes Under the Feet of Jesus

3000 word essay (regular attendance is appreciated and highly recommended)