ENGL 260 Classics of American Literature
This course focuses on the American literary canon, from the first authors to consider themselves citizens of the new United States, to the giants of 20th Century literature. This will be a fast-paced hurdle through the most influential classics across 220+ years of history; there will be selections and excerpts from the poems and stories that spoke to and reflected the tumultuous growing pains of the republic, the harrowing crucible of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the unprecedented changes attending the Turn of the Century, the writings of the Gilded Age and World Wars, and the works that captured the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and social change. Importantly, this course will include an additional contextual dimension: namely, that of the Native American peoples as both creators and subjects of literature and narrative. This context will extend from properly historicizing the growth of the United States against the backdrop of relations with Native peoples, to critiquing representations of tribal cultures in various texts, to reading and analyzing indigenous authors’ narratives. This contextual dimension will be robust enough to actively reframe this literary survey, establishing and reinforcing access to a perspective that has historically been silenced or glossed over.
Distribution
EN