Spring 2004 Courses

English 137: Novel (Dawes)

This course will examine pivotal works in the tradition of the American novel. We will examine how the myth of American individualism is established, deployed, reprocessed, and subverted in texts ranging from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. We will pay special attention to questions of race, gender, epistemology, the grotesque, narrative theory, ideology, urbanization, and ethics. The class will engage in intensive readings of individual texts, but will also seek to examine the larger backgrounds of American literary and cultural history. Readings will be drawn from Alcott, James, Dreiser, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Morrison.

Spring 2004 Course Listings