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Academic analyses of American literature and culture tend to focus rather readily on the oftentimes problematic interconnections between different religious currents in the United States and politics as well as broader cultural and social issues. This course offers an opportunity to cast a glance at the impact that atheist traditions of thought have exerted in American literature and culture, and, in turn, which socio-political and cultural currents have impacted the expression and reception of atheist thought, or of what at different historical moments passed for it. Covering a broad range of fiction and non-fiction texts from the Early Republic to the present day, from Thomas Paine to the New Atheists, this seminar offers a forum for the familiarization with and critical, historicising discussion of the philosophical background, the generic argumentative structures, as well as the specific stylistic markers of atheist expressions in, chiefly, the US-American context. Information regarding course requirements and materials will be provided in the first session.
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