American Realism and Naturalism

Catalog description

This course examines the literary modes of representation known as realism and naturalism. We will consider the ways in which literature represents, responds to, and shapes the extraordinary transformations in American culture from 1865 through the turn into the twentieth century. The course will consider literature and its contexts: social, historical, political, ideological, artistic, etc. Writers may include Chesnutt, Chopin, Crane, Davis, Dreiser, Du Bois, Eaton, Freeman, Gilman, Howells, James, Jewett, Norris, Twain, Washington, and Wharton.