Department of English

This course presents four writers whose literary careers were shaped by their unique experiences as Southerners. While each of these writers has gained a considerable reputation as an American writer whose writing transcends regional distinction, the South resonates in their voices,     mediates their vision. What each writer confronts, finally, is Southern history as burden and source,convention and curse. This course will explore the myths and cultural codes that foreground life in the South (particularly after the Civil War). We will then proceed towards an examination of how the writers in the course frame Southern experience, given their diferences in race, class, and gender. Works to be read include _ Absalom, Absalom_, _Their Eyes Were Watching God_,_ Black Boy_, and _The Wide Net and Other Stories_. The films _The Birth of a Nation_ and _Gone With the Wind_ will also be screened. Coursework will consist of two critical essays and a final group project.