Description: This course will cover the period of American Literature from the end of the Civil War to roughly the end of WWII.  As this is a survey course, the emphasis is to expose the student to the broad spectrum of this amazing literature, and especially to American voices not usually represented in the mainstream canon.  The course will be mostly lecture and discussion.  The written requirements will be weekly entries in a class blog; several short writing assignments; and written midterm and final exams.  Active class participation and excellent attendance are also required.

As to understand this literature is to embrace it as part of a larger complexity of ideas and practices, much of the class discussions will be colored by introductions to the histories, cultures and social movements of this period, from both “mainstream” and “alternative” sources.

Texts: The Concise, Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2: 1865 to the Present (2e); excerpt from Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here; and William Attaway, Blood on the Forge.