English 132

American Novel

Book List

Hawthorne, N.: The Scarlet Letter; Twain, M.: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; James, H.: Daisy Miller; Cahan, A.: Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto; Dreiser, T.: Sister Carrie; DuBois, W. E. B.: Dark Princess; West, N.: The Day of the Locust; Nabokov, V.: Pnin; Kingston, M.: China Men; Morrison, T.: A Mercy

Description

Rather than define a canon, this survey will trace how the novel has contributed to nation-formation in the U.S. How has the novel helped to define what it means to be American, starting from the country’s fledgling days as an outpost of Europe? To what extent has the novel form been able to incorporate the diversity of American experiences—and to what extent has it promoted exclusions of race, gender, and class? What are the limitations of both novel and nation—and how has the American novel expressed these limitations?

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