12:20P-1:10P MWF (25) 3 cr

TOPIC: RACE, LITERATURE, AND SOCIETY IN 19TH-CENTURY AMERICA =20
OPEN TO HONORS DIVISION STUDENTS ONLY.  OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM
HONORS DIVISION, 324 N. JORDAN.

This course will focus on American literary and cultural texts in
the 19th century that deal with the immensely complex and
controversial problem of "race," especially as that played itself
out in terms of the relations between African Americans and white
Americans.  As this issue profoundly affected the social,
political, economic, and cultural life of the nation, we will
read and discuss a broad variety of texts, ranging from political
documents (e.g., the U.S. Constitution) and Supreme Court
opinions (e.g., the Dred Scott case and PLESSY VS. FERGUSON) to
antislavery works (e.g., DAVID WALKER'S APPEAL), newspapers, and
slave narratives (e.g., Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs) to
fictions (e.g., Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, Melville's  Benito
Cereno,' and Twain's HUCKLEBERRY FINN), autobiographies (e.g.,
Washington's UP FROM SLAVERY), and essays (e.g., DuBois' THE
SOULS OF BLACK FOLK) as well as some excerpts from the multitude
of historical analyses that have been written on this subject for
the past 100 years of more.