Empire States of Mind

Catalog description

Empire State of Mind: Reading New York City - The primary text for this class will be the city of New York. We will examine the fiction, film, history and architecture of the world's most dynamic and storied urban space. In addition to reading the poetry of Walt Whitman, the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephan Crane, and the novels of the Harlem Renaissance we will explore the ways in which New York City is mythologized in popular culture (from Sinatra to Jay-Z). Culminating with a trip to lower Manhattan, where we will cross the Brooklyn Bridge, walk through the Five Points, and visit the 9/11 Memorial, this course will attempt to sort the facts from the fictions that surround the City that Never Sleeps.