Department of English

This course will introduce students to some of the American authors who published between 1900-1950. We will learn about the intellectual and cultural milieu of this period and examine how writers grappled with new dimensions of American life: the growth of cities, the emergence of mass culture and conspicuous consumption, the fault lines of immigration and race, and attitudes about sexuality. The authors we read may include: Henry James, Sui Sin Far, Edith Wharton, William Carlos Williams, W.E.B. DuBois, Wallace Stevens, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Carson McCullers, and Nathanael West.

Students will write two critical papers and a take-home essay exam, among other smaller writing assignments. Students will have the opportunity to produce a creative project in the place of one of the critical papers.