4:00p-5:15p TR (30) 3 cr.

This course will survey a number of texts with the intention of examining how "America" is imagined and portrayed. This is not a "masterpieces" course, although all of the works we will read have their own unique literary merit. Instead, we will focus on the text as it performs the cultural work of creating individual, communal, and national "identity." The critical issues of race, gender, class, and the relation between "citizen" and "nation" will move us toward understanding competing national narratives and how we strive to understand ourselves in and of "America." Texts include works by Ellison, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Wharton, Salinger, Burroughs, Acosta, Jim Thompson, Hunter Thompson, Hemingway, and Ana Castillo.