11:15A-12:30P TR (30) 3 cr.
In this class, we will survey a wide range of 19th-Century fiction, from short tales and sketches, to longer novels. The reading list is not yet fixed, but will include many of the following authors: Irving, Cooper, Sedgwick, Lippard, Hawthorne, Poe, Douglass, Melville, Stowe, Alcott, Twain, Kirkland, James, Crane, Frederic, Chopin, Cable, Chesnutt, Norris, Jewett, Alger. We will discuss such topics as romance and sentimental politics, Gothic and sensationalist modes, realism, naturalism, regionalism, the contribution of racialist thinking to the development of American literature, the pressures of the ever-expanding mass production of literature. Students will be expected to keep up with a considerable reading load, write two papers totaling 20 pages, and take at least one exam (it may be a midterm or it may be a final; or we may have both) that demonstrates your attentive reading and absorption of lecture material.