Survey of American Literature I

Catalog description

“I resist anything better than my own diversity,” Walt Whitman writes in section 16 of Song of Myself—and in many ways he speaks for all of American culture too. American identity and culture is shaped by diversity in ancestry, race, gender, religion, class, sexual orientation, region, and by another kind of diversity too: a shifting boundary between art for the elites and popular culture for the masses, with themes and techniques continually spilling over from one side of this boundary to the other. This course will explore the formation of American literature. But we’ll also talk about national identity, race, sex, conquest, faith, sin and salvation (but mostly sin), and the cosmic beauty of existence if you can escape to a cabin at Walden Pond. Prerequisite: none. Credit: 4. ( Offered every odd fall, alternating in this rotation with ENG 230.)