AJL15083 Modern American Drama - tranformations of the genre

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2021
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 6 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Taught online.
Teacher(s)
Konstantinos Blatanis, Ph.D. (lecturer), doc. Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D. (deputy)
doc. Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 17. 5. 14:00–14:50 VP, Fri 21. 5. 14:00–14:50 VP, Mon 24. 5. 14:00–14:50 VP, Fri 28. 5. 14:00–14:50 VP
Prerequisites
AJL01002 Practical English II
Ability to study works of literature and criticism in English.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 15 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/15, only registered: 0/15, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/15
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 13 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This course offers a comprehensive study of the development of American drama as a distinct genre from the early decades of the twentieth century to the present day. The primary aim of the course is to familiarize students with major innovations and seminal contributions to the field that have defined the work of American playwrights over the past ten decades. Furthermore, the students are guided to engage critically with the most significant qualities of the historical and socio-cultural context within which these endeavours materialized. Attention is specifically devoted to the inventive ways in which dramatists in the US respond to movements and trends that inform intellectual life and art in the contemporary Western world as well as the modes in which they re-discover older and well-established dramatic genres and proceed to transform them and/or create new ones, which are distinctly American. The course comprises of ten modules which are organized in chronological order that allows students to form a clear picture of the historical evolution of the genre, without adhering, nonetheless, to any rules of strict periodization. Finally, students conduct research which revolves around plays which to a great extent form part of the literary and dramatic canon; yet, as young scholars they are also urged to consider the significance of experimentation for the itinerary of development that the course follows.
Learning outcomes
Students will learn to:
- critically evaluate dramatic works by the most influential American playwrights of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,
- acquire research and analytical skills that will allow them to assess the significance of representative plays in the context of generic development and explore the defining features of the cultural/aesthetic milieu of the American dramatic and theatrical traditions,
- gain knowledge regarding the ways in which drama has contributed to the formation of late modernity and postmodernity in the US as well as the modes in which this cultural form sustains or undermines collective understandings of the American ethos and identity,
- engage in critical thinking and formulate sound arguments as they learn to employ adequately basic tenets and research tools that contemporary literary and dramatic criticism and theory provide but also to prepare themselves for further research in this particular field and/or numerous other related areas of interest.
Syllabus
  • KB: To be taught by Dr. Konstantinos Blatanis
    TK: To be taught by Dr. Tomáš Kačer
  • Module 1 (TK):* New Grounds for the Psychological Drama:
    - Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms (1924)
  • Module 2 (KB):* Re-invigorating the Poetics and Politics of the Memory Play:
    - Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944)
  • Module 3 (TK): Contextualizing the History Play:
    - Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953)
  • Module 4 (KB): Assessing Anew the Legacy of the Absurd:
    - Adrienne Kennedy’s A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976)
  • Module 5 (KB): Debunking Kitchen-sink Realism:
    - Sam Shepard’s True West (1980)
  • Module 6 (TK): Resounding the Biographical Play:
    - August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982)
  • Module 7 (KB): Reclaiming the Dynamics of the Epic Play:
    - Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play (1993)
  • Module 8 (TK): Pushing the Limits of the Liberal Comedy:
    - Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2000)
  • Module 9 (TK):* Empowering the One-Actor Show:
    - Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife (2003)
  • Module 10 (KB):* Re-establishing the Popularity of the Broadway Musical:
    - Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton (2015)
  • *These modules are held as live sessions (synchronous teaching): 1, 2, 9, and 10.
Teaching methods
Four synchronous and six asynchronous online modules.
Home study, class discussion, online discussion forums, progress tests, final test, final essay.
Assessment methods
The final grade will consist of these 4 parts:
Essay (c. 8 MLA pages) OR two short essay-like response papers (c. 2 MLA pages each) (up to 50%)
Progress tests and module-related tasks (up to 20%).
Final test (up to 20%).
Class discussion participation (up to 10%).
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
Teacher's information
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a04e646120d11466fb9841e9d1580f283%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=c83a3ffd-d256-4335-8d11-08ba6279f1c3&tenantId=11904f23-f0db-4cdc-96f7-390bd55fcee8
AN INTENSIVE ONLINE COURSE

DATES:
May 17-28, 2021

The course web site (MS Teams) will be made available to students on May 1, 2021.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A collaborative course created at the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno (Czechia) and the Department of English Language and Literature, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece).
The course creation has been funded by the IRP COIL program at Masaryk University.

Teachers:

Dr. Konstantinos Blatanis (kblatanis@enl.uoa.gr)
Dr. Tomáš Kačer (kacer@phil.muni.cz)

All teaching will be held online in the MS Office 365 environment, for example:
MS Teams: platform for online communication; MS Sharepoint: storage of course materials; MS Forms: feedback and progress tests; MS Class Notebook: students’ collaborative workspace, and so on.


  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2021/AJL15083