Courses I’m Making Up, Vol. I
ENLS 4010:01: Business in American Literature
In a recent address to now-renowned Occupy Wall Street protestors, Noam Chomsky claimed American business must be “overcome” for American society to be set along “a more healthy course.” Has ‘business’ as a concept and praxis always been at odds with the health of American society and democracy? How have business and capitalist enterprises been represented in American letters? What about representing the contemporary ‘office space’? Most basically: How do we talk about ‘business’ constructively, and what do we mean when we talk about ‘business’?
These are some vague questions into which we will sink our teeth throughout the semester, paying attention to the content of our texts as much as the form of these texts. We will hit the ground running with some contextual and theoretical readings to include, but not limited to, excerpts from The Federalist Papers, writings from Chomsky, Mills, Hayek, Lefebvre, Debs, Said, and additional economists. From here we will turn our attention to a chronology of American literature on the subject of ‘business’ to include at least: Melville’s Bartleby; James’ “In the Cage”; Bellamy’s Looking Backward; Ellison’s Invisible Man; Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint; Ferris’ And Then We Came to an End; and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. We will watch some films—including J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call—and students will be responsible for watching episodes of Mad Men and 30 Rock throughout the second half of the semester.
Assignments include: two 3-4 page papers; a presentation; and one final research paper.
