ENGL 40605 - The American Scene

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

"To make much so much money that you won't, that you don't mind, don't mind anything--that is absolutely, I think, the main American formula." Henry James, The American Scene, 1907. "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good, is right, it works...and it will save that malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.," Gordon Gecko, Wall Street, 1987. After a 20-year absence, Henry James returned to America to examine the country of his birth. His tour brought him to the above quoted and dismaying conclusion. This course tries to contextualize and understand James's remark by placing it within a broader atmosphere of late 19th- and early 20th-century American culture. We'll look at works that predate, are contemporary with, and follow James's American tour. We'll look at works of literature and biography, of politics and philosophy, and of theology and economics. Throughout, we will keep circling around and back to James's notion of "The Main American Formula" and asking not only what exactly he meant, but how other major thinkers of the age understood or conceived of an "American Formula," and how that formula could be measured at the level of the individual, the corporation, the country, and, with Conrad's Nostromo, the world. Readings will include works of the following authors: Joseph Conrad, Theodore Dreissner, Henry Ford, Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, Thorstein Veblen, and Edith Wharton. In addition, we will view several movies whose focus is directly related to the course's central questions.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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