Handbook

Throughout its relatively brief history, the United States has consistently produced diverse, influential, and often innovative literature that reflects the dynamism of the country itself. In this subject we will investigate how authors from the nineteenth century to today deploy different literary forms - including poetry, the novel, the short story - in order to explore and challenge understandings of what it means to be American. More specific topics of discussion may include the representation of race, class, gender, and sexuality; the relations of literature to technology; the representation of city, the country, and the suburb; the representation of region.