PRE-1865.

This survey course is designed to introduce you to a wide and rich variety of American literature from its colonial beginnings to the mid-19th century, including works representing some of the diverse ethnic and racial strands of our literary heritage as well as texts by women writers frequently excluded from literary collections.  Since this course covers writings from the colonial period through the Civil War, we will become familiar with the historical and cultural circumstances surrounding the production of a given text and explore the development and expression of some fundamental ideas—-assumptions, myths, and beliefs—that still influence the ways Americans think about themselves and their society today.  In addition to studying a range of prose, poetry, and fictional works, we will also closely examine their aesthetic or rhetorical dimensions and practice ways of identifying representative issues and themes. The course uses You Tube and other media as part of its instruction.

Course requirements include weekly reading and discussion posts, a course paper, and a mid-term and final examination. (Note: To enroll in this course you must have previously taken ENC1101 and ENC 1102. ENG 3014 is highly recommended.

POST-1865 and DIVERSITY.

This course will examine literatures written about the American South from the Antebellum period through modern-day. We will consider authors such as Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor, among others. We will consider key movements in Southern literature and the ways in which each author defines “Southerness” and the American South’s storied but haunted history.