ENGL 408 - American Realism and Urban Life

Institution:

Trinity College

Subject:

Description:

In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, American cities enjoyed the benefits of explosive economic growth but suffered the consequences of widespread poverty and class polarization. As both literal places and imagined spaces, cities embodied the excitement and opportunity of the "American dream" even as they provoked profound social and cultural anxieties. With immigrants arriving by the million and poor industrial workers living in striking proximity to the capitalists whom industry enriched, American cities were powder kegs of ethnic, racial, and class animosity-and frequently they exploded. During the same period, the school of literature we now call realism flourished, and realist authors wrote novels preoccupied with urban life. In this course, we will consider why rapid urbanization may have provoked literary realism and how literary realism in turn shaped our understanding of the urban center. Reading texts by authors such as Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Charles Chesnutt, John Dos Passos, and Richard Wright, we will examine the ways realist novels represent the covert tensions and outright unrest of the turn-of-the-century American metropolis. We will grapple with questions including: What is the fate of individualism in a crowd How do developments such as factories, mass transit, department-store shopping, and the expansion of mass media change the ways people think about themselves and their membership in a social class or ethnic group How does city life shape people's cognition of the world around them and the ways art and culture represent that world (Note: English 408 and English 808 are the same course.) For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature written after 1800, or a course emphasizing cultural context. For the English graduate program, this course satisfies the requirement of a course in American literature or a course emphasizing cultural context for the literary studies track and an elective for the writing, rhetoric, and media arts track. 1.00 units, Seminar

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.Trincoll.edu

Phone Number:

(860) 297-2000

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Semester

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