1. Introductions

The American Novel Since 1945 (ENGL 291)

In this first lecture Professor Hungerford introduces the course's academic requirements and some of its central concerns. She uses a magazine advertisement for James Joyce's Ulysses and an essay by Vladimir Nabokov (author of Lolita, a novel on the syllabus) to establish opposing points of view about what is required to be a competent reader of literature. The contrast between popular emotional appeal and detached artistic judgment frames literary debates from the Modernist, and through the post-45 period. In the second half of lecture, Hungerford shows how the controversies surrounding the publication of Richard Wright's Black Boy highlight the questions of truth, memory, and autobiography that will continue to resurface throughout the course.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction: Major Themes
08:07 - Chapter 2. Course Requirements
13:43 - Chapter 3. How To Read: On Joyce and Nabokov
29:30 - Chapter 4. Introduction to Richard Wright's "Black Boy": Autobiography and Editorial Influence
43:58 - Chapter 5. Conclusions: "Black Boy" and Major Course Themes

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2008.