Course Description: This course presents an overview of American literature from the Civil War to the present. We will examine significant literature that sprang from and shaped American culture and cultural values, and that fueled and reflected the dynamic interactions among peoples and places.

Students will become familiar with a broad range of works of American literature, and with the authors, historical periods, and literary and cultural movements that these works reflect. Students will engage deeply with the texts and with their classmates through consistent analysis, expression, and reflection, and they will articulate clearly in written and spoken formats their intellectual, emotional, and ethical responses to the literature we read.