Honors Seminar:
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
English 290.001 - K Edgington
Fall 1996
Historically, the American Dream has been associated with the West,
in general, and California, in particular. This course examines the
pursuit of and disillusionment with the American Dream as a literary theme
in works set in California. Unit One covers the evolution of the dream
(lecture and approximately thirty pages of background reading) and
migration west (Grapes of Wrath). Unit Two examines the theme in
the Hollywood Novel (The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh, The Last
Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Day of the Locust, by
Nathaniel West, Play it as it Lays, by Joan Didion). Unit Three
explores California in the Sixties (Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas
Pynchon, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe). Seminar
format, two papers, midterm, and final.
For more information contact K Edgington