ENGL 353 A: American Literature: Later Nineteenth Century

This course will look at a range of literary texts produced in the United States between the Civil War and the First World War. In addition to producing an astonishing range of novels and other texts, this period also saw the rise of the modern university. In fact, the first course on American literature was actually taught during this period. I want to combine these two facts in order to explore the various kinds of education that we see in this period—from the informal “school of hard knocks” on the city streets, to the forms of literacy practiced by freed slaves, to the first novels about formal college education for both men and women. As we study these different kinds of classrooms, we will consider how they resemble and give rise to our own kinds of educational structures and principles. Requirements will include a midterm, final, and critical essays.