This is the greatest, most thrilling and inspiring period in American literary history, and the central theme represented and explored in it is freedom, and its relationship to power. Power and freedom—the charged and complex dynamics of these intersecting terms, ideas, and conflicted realities: we will examine this theme in literature, religion, social reform, sexual and racial liberation, and more. Authors to be studied will include Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Douglass, Stowe, Henry James. We will enrich our work by studying films dealing with the period—for example, Edward Zwick’s Glory (1989), about one of the first regiments of African-American troops, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012).; and we also will consider the visual arts—photography and American landscape painting. The literature that we will read and respond to in this course was written 150 years ago, but the issues that these writers engage are totally relevant to who we are and where we are today. In important ways this is really a course in contemporary American literature.

Units: 1

Max Enrollment: 30

Crosslisted Courses:

Prerequisites: None

Instructor:

Distribution Requirements: LL - Language and Literature

Typical Periods Offered: Spring

Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered

Notes: