Los Angeles has played a strange role in the literary American imagination. Serving as an ever-fascinating blank screen, writers from the US and abroad have projected their fantasies, prophesies, and fears onto L.A. and thus helped to reinforce or even create lasting myths about the city. In this course, we will trace the emergence of Los Angeles as a literary stage where the American dream and the American nightmare shake hands. Our literary tour will take us from letters and diaries by early Spanish settlers to writings by African American novelists and poets, British and German expatriates, Latino writers, and famous journalists. Special attention will be paid to genres such as detective fiction (and film noir), Hollywood novels, urban rebellion plays, and L.A. poetry.
It is advisable to read the novels in advance.
Required Texts:
- Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (Penguin Classics, 2006)
- Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (Important Books, 2013)
- T. C. Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain (Penguin Literary Classics, 2008)
- A reader with primary and secondary texts will be made available at the beginning of the course.
