Literary Interpretation: Literature and Urban Experience

A man in a black coat sits on a subway and reads a book.

Literature and the urban experience come together as a man reads his book on the subway. (Image by JanneM on flickr.).

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21L.701

As Taught In

Spring 2009

Level

Undergraduate

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Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

Alienation, overcrowding, sensory overload, homelessness, criminality, violence, loneliness, sprawl, blight. How have the realities of city living influenced literature's formal and thematic techniques? How useful is it to think of literature as its own kind of "map" of urban space? Are cities too grand, heterogeneous, and shifting to be captured by writers? In this seminar we will seek answers to these questions in key city literature, and in theoretical works that endeavor to understand the culture of cities.

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Related Content

Sarah Brouillette. 21L.701 Literary Interpretation: Literature and Urban Experience. Spring 2009. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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