ENGL 332 - Perspectives on American Literature and Culture (3 credits)

(Prereq: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 with a grade of ‘C’ or better) This course develops students’ knowledge of a wide range of American literary and cultural texts that are critically analyzed within particular social, historical, political, theoretical, popular, and/or aesthetic contexts. Through various overlapping forms of representation (textual, digital, aural, visual), students explore recurring themes of American culture including, but not limited to, American exceptionalism, race relations, the individual vs. the state, the meaning of nature, identity creation/identity crisis, and the politics of voice. The literary and cultural texts that students read, view, and listen to include canonical as well as less heralded titles that the instructor selects from these main sources: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, contemporary video, musical lyric, and/or cinema. The course features interactive and diverse approaches to assessment, from traditional papers to digital collaborations that show student engagement with American texts and their literary/cultural contexts. F, S.