AP/EN 4365 3.00
California in Literature
This survey of California writing considers the state's polarizing hold on the imagination of various communities and constituents, considering an array of genres, styles, and thematic concerns.
'The very name of California is splendor' enthused poet Vachel Lindsey in 1915, though by 1990 geographer Mike Davis had dubbed the state 'the junkyard of dreams.' From the gold rush on (and even before), California has been imagined as a place of American dreams and nightmares, its mountains and valleys representing the aspirations of immigrant laborers and dust-bowl refugees, its cities a haven for American Blacks, a promised land for hippies, performers, dropouts, queers, outcasts of all types. It has been depicted as a land of pastoral promise and urban dystopia, of sunshine and noir, of technological promise and natural catastrophe, as both Eden and apocalypse. The course deals with such themes and genres as nature writing; urban and suburban California; Hollywood; the countercultures; immigration; real estate; automobile culture; sprawl; industry; race, ethnicity, and sexuality; and both natural and human-driven catastrophe.