Growing Up in America

Catalog description

This course will consider American narratives of adolescence and coming of age from the nineteenth century to the present. We will examine the archetypal aspects of coming to grips with maturity and the world, class and gender roles, and the invention of "adolescence" as a new psychological category. International perspectives will be provided by reading some British and Japanese works. Authors covered will include Dickens, Melville, Twain, Alcott, Kerouac, Hemingway, Baldwin, Mishima and Tan, among others. Lectures, class discussions and student reports. S/NC