Welcome to Contemporary American Literature and the Historiographic Imagination. In this course, we will chart the ever-tenuous boundaries between writing fiction and writing history, as well as engage in debate about the political possibilities of re-vising historical narrative through fictional or non-fictional means.
Our first book of the quarter is E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel, published in 1971. The Book of Daniel was Doctorow's first novel, and has since been superseded in reputation by his subsequent books, especially Ragtime. Like Ragtime, however, Doctorow's first novel manifests a deep investment in American history and its often-tragic effects on individual human actors. The Book of Daniel focuses on the Isaacson family, a Leftist clan living during the McCarthyist 1950s. Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, clear analogues for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, leave a legacy of pain and confusion after they are put to death for treason. The Book of Daniel is their son's story, but it is also a larger narrative of national loss, victimization, and Cold War paranoia. Doctorow weaves together the complex history of the Rosenbergs in postwar America with postmodern meta-literary techniques that draw attention to the roles of both author and reader in creating a text. How does The Book of Daniel allow Doctorow to construct an ambivalent meditation on authority, politics, and knowledge during the latter half of the twentieth century?
*For more on Doctorow and The Book of Daniel, see the resources sidebar.
No comments:
Post a Comment