Department of English

Novels play a crucial role in imagining a national community and in representing its central conflicts.  In this course we will read classic 19th-and 20th-century novels that wrestle with the changing meaning of America through artistic innovation.  A key theme will address the representation of America’s defining conflict between freedom and slavery in the broadest sense.  Readings include Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Melville’s Moby Dick; Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Cather’s The Professor’s House, Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Morrison’s Beloved.