American Literature, 1865-1945: The Americanization of Power
ENGL 204
Fall 2020 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
AMST 235 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Urban Studies |
We will explore not only the complexities of American literature from the 1860s to 1940s but also how this literature is usable today and excels as a critical resource that can advance our understanding of the modern Americanization of power (put narrowly, a "democratic" capitalism that pulled off and contrived to maintain systemic class, gender, and ethnoracial hierarchies). As we unpack the relationship of literary form and social form, we will trace connections between historical developments such as the gothic genre and gender ideologies, domestic romance and the social reproduction of labor, realism and mass-urbanism, naturalism and immigration, modernism and imperialism, and narrative experimentation and anti-racism. The creative works of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Charles Chesnutt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O'Neill, Nathanael West, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston will help equip us to be more imaginative readers of literature, ourselves, and what America was and might be. While contemplating this, we will savor the pleasures of reading inspiring and transformative writing. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Lecture | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(ENGL)(ENGL-Literature) |
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