This course is a small, faculty-led seminar on the practice and discipline of literary analysis. It is meant for all students who seek an introductory literature course and would like to improve their ability to read and write critically, including those who may wish to major in English. Focusing on the close study of a few works, rather than a survey of many, the seminar will help students develop college-level skills for interpreting literature, while gaining awareness of different strategies and approaches for making sense of literary language, genres, forms, and contexts. The seminar also will develop students’ ability to write about literature and to communicate meaningfully the stakes of their analysis to an audience.

Rather than define a canon, this seminar will trace how the novel form has contributed to the project of nation-formation in the United States. How has the novel helped to define what it means to be American, starting from the country’s fledgling days as an outpost of Europe? To what extent has the novel been able to incorporate the diversity of American experiences, and to what extent has it promoted racial, gender, and class inequality? What are the limits of both the novel and nationhood, and how does literary experimentation push against these limits?

The book list is still being finalized (please don't make any purchases until our first meeting) but will likely include Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, James's Daisy Miller, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Nabokov's Pnin, and Morrison's Beloved.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills