English 221 - New York, New York
New York, New York
Spring
2022
01
4.00
Michael E. Gorra
TU TH 1:20 PM - 2:35 PM
Smith College
ENG-221-01-202203
Seelye 201
mgorra@smith.edu
It’s a helluva town, as the 1944 song has it, both urban jungle and capital of the world. This class
examines not the real city but rather the way that city was depicted and imagined throughout the 20th
century, from Edith Wharton and the first Gilded Age to the work of Spike Lee. We’ll study fiction, photographs, films, and even a Broadway musical or two; the Harlem Renaissance and the New Yorker
magazine; Sontag, Baldwin, and Scorsese; A Chorus Line and Do the Right Thing. (E)
examines not the real city but rather the way that city was depicted and imagined throughout the 20th
century, from Edith Wharton and the first Gilded Age to the work of Spike Lee. We’ll study fiction, photographs, films, and even a Broadway musical or two; the Harlem Renaissance and the New Yorker
magazine; Sontag, Baldwin, and Scorsese; A Chorus Line and Do the Right Thing. (E)