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Course Info for ENGL - 340 - 01, Fall 2024
Class number: 3092 Title: American Adaptations Department: English
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 14 Available seats: 1
Start date: Tuesday, September 3, 2024 End date: Wednesday, December 18, 2024 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM, 115V - 106 Instructor(s): Wyss, Hilary
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities Requirement
Note: For majors enrolled before December 2023, this course fulfills the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written between 1700-1900. For majors enrolled after January 2024, this course fulfills the post 1800 requirement, the UVSJ requirement, or may be an elective/additional literature or film course.
Course Description:
This course will look at the ways American writers from the nineteenth century to the present have mythologized an early American moment, looking to the past to critique or celebrate American identity through fiction and poetry. We will focus on texts concerned with early America, from works like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to twentieth-century texts like I, Tituba by Maryse Conde and A Mercy by Toni Morrison. By focusing on the historical and literary context for such works, including pivotal moments like the Salem witch trials, King Philip's War, and the American Revolution and writers like Mary Rowlandson and Phillis Wheatley, we will frame our discussion of the ways the past usefully informs current conversations around race, identity, and belonging.