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Literature and Theories of the Underground

ENGL 281.920
instructor(s):
MW 4:30-7:40

This course is designed to explore the concept of the underground through various examples of underground literature and literature that configures the underground symbolically or literally with its main characters, plots and themes. One of the goals of this course is to develop a working definition of the underground as a social concept/construct. We will also be concerned with establishing a theoretical link across various ways in which the underground is employed throughout literary history.

Texts:
Henrietta Buckmaster, Let My People Go
Richard Wright, Uncle Tom's Children, The Man Who Lived Underground
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Amiri Baraka, The Dutchman, The System of Dante's Hell
Toni Morrison, Sula
Fyodor Doystoevsky, excerpts from Notes From Underground
Art Spiegelman, Maus I and Maus II

Week One - Course Introduction
Week Two - The Underground and the Internet (Begin Let My People Go)
Week Three - Let My People Go
Week Four - Finish Let My People Go
Week Five - Uncle Tom's Children
Week Six - Notes From Underground
Week Seven - Invisible Man (pp. vii - 195)
Week Eight - Invisible Man (pp. 195-581)
Week Nine - The Man Who Lived Underground
Week Ten - Sula
Week Eleven - Maus I and Maus II
Week Twelve- The System of Dante's Hell
Week Thirteen - The Dutchman

fulfills requirements