ENGL 293 - Topics in American Literature FDR: HL, GE3 Credits: 3-4 When Offered: Winter, Spring
Prerequisite: Completion of the FW or GE1 composition requirement.Studies in American literature, supported by attention to historical contexts. Versions of this course may survey several periods or concentrate on a group of works from a short span of time. Students develop their analytical writing skills in a series of short papers. May be repeated for degree credit with permission and if the topics are different.
Topic for Spring, 2010:
Business in American Literature (4): Intensive study of selections from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and of various stories and films dealing with American business. (HL, GE3) Smout.
Topic for Winter, 2010:
ENGL 293A: Topics in American Literature: Form and Freedom in Modern American Poetry (3). Robert Frost once said that writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net. This course explores that statement by studying several modern American poets. We examine varieties of free verse from Walt Whitman through Sylvia Plath and compare those writers’ works to poets like Frost and Richard Wilbur, who preferred traditional forms. We also see how individual poets have worked with both form and freedom throughout their careers. In the process, the course studies many verse forms, including sonnets, villanelles and sestinas, and concludes by sampling some contemporary experimental approaches. (HL, GE3) Brodie
ENGL 293B: Topics in American Literature: Literature of the Gilded Age (3). This course investigates American literature written during the historical period that Mark Twain dubbed the Gilded Age (roughly 1865 to 1905). An explosive era of excesses and contradictions, the Gilded Age witnessed Reconstruction, the rise of the modern city, the closing of the frontier, and the celebration of unprecedented wealth. With the major literary developments of realism and naturalism in mind, we practice close reading of individual texts to see how diverse writers created complex, often conflicting representations of American experience and national identity. For instance, we juxtapose Dreiser’s Sister Carrie with L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (both published in 1900), the popular dime-novels of Horatio Alger with the conjure tales of Charles Chesnutt, and the intensely personal poetry of Emily Dickinson with the publicly censured novel The Awakening. Requirements include thoughtful class participation, short responses, analytical essays, and exams. (HL, GE3) Wall
ENGL 293C: Topics in American Literature: Recent American Literature (3). This course examines significant works of the past quarter century. Writers will likely include: Don DeLillo, Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Jhumpa Lahiri, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Colson Whitehead, and more. (HL, GE3) Crowley
ENGL 293D: Topics in American Literature: American Short Story (3). We explore the roots of this distinctly modern genre through the work of American, French, and Russian masters while also sampling a wide range of contemporary writers, from minimalists to magical realists. Among the authors included: Poe, Hawthorne, Chekhov, Hemingway, Lawrence, Mansfield, Cheever, O’Connor, Carver, Oates, and Boyle. (HL, GE3) Oliver
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