Survey of American Literature II

Catalog description

This course surveys the wide variety of literature produced in the United States from the Civil War to the present, an era of dizzying change. This period witnessed suchmomentous historical events as the Industrial Revolution, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, two world wars, the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement, gay liberation, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and the development of a globalized economy—to name only a few. This course will consider how American authors of this era responded to their rapidly shifting landscape. Students willencounter a rich array of writers, such as Howells, Mark Twain, James, Washington, Du Bois, Crane, Wharton, Cather, Frost, O’Neill, Hurston, Fitzgerald, Faulkner,Hemingway, Wright, Williams, Ellison, Brooks, Baldwin, O'Connor, Plath, Walker, Morrison, Roth, Kingston, Silko, Lee, Adichie, Erdrich, and Díaz.