11:15A-12:30P TR (30) 3 cr

The primary work of this class will be the reading of several
novels, stories, and poems written by Americans in the years
since the First World War.  We will focus our attention on the
ways in which writers such as Steinbeck, Morrison and Kingston
have imagined the worlds which Americans inhabit and the ways in
which race, national origin, gender, and class inflect character
and narrative.

This course is organized around the notion that American
literature may best be understood as a conversation rather than a
singular tradition.  That is, American literature is defined here
as a discursive practice based on an actual plurality rather than
an imagined unity.  The books that structure this course
represent different "takes" on what we might consider the
spacial, historic, and political commonalities of the American
experience and the normative tropes of the American literary
imagination.  However, the aforementioned "imagined unity" is
still vital, whether or not we think it is necessary.  As a
result we will find ourselves struggling with its power to
organize the particularities of American writers and its
tenacious ability to direct and define the limits of what is
possible in the American literary imagination.