“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” (T.S. Eliot)

Welcome to my blog on American Literature and Film which I am constructing for the Master’s degree from the National University of Ireland, Cork.

My blog is a digitized form of the research journal to be completed as part of my course.

This assignment requires me to fulfil four tasks:

Task (1): To visit the Cobh Heritage Centre (http://www.cobhheritage.com) and write a report on the exhibition, on immigrants and relate it to the seminar texts on immigration and immigrants. (750 words/20 marks)

Task (2): To prepare a Powerpoint document and presentation on one of the following topics:

1. Harlem Renaissance
2. America in the 1920s
3. Jewish American writers pre-1960
4. Nathanael West

(1000 words/50 marks)

Task (3): To write a diary recording your evolving knowledge (including assessment of class discussions) of one of the following topics:

1. American Modernism
2. American society and immigrant experience
3. American society and race
4. American society and ethnicity

(1250 words/30 marks)

Task (4): By independently researching on the internet, students should write a report on contemporary attitudes to the America South/plantation myths, etc. (1000 words/20 marks)

As well as fulfilling these tasks, I will use my blog to document my findings, views and opinions from class discussions, reading, and research which I deem relevant to developing my research journal.