This course is intended to do a couple of (hopefully related) things. First, it will serve as an introduction to theories of the Everyday. (I hope the capitalization of the word gives it an appropriately allegorical aura.) That there actually are theories of everyday life may only be final proof to skeptics that academicians indeed chew more than they bite off. For me, however, there is nothing more serious (and nothing more entertaining) than coming to understand the ideologies, practices, and narratives that constitute daily life. Second, the course will offer different ways to think about the Everyday within the specific parameters of 19th century American culture. There is indeed a history to the Everyday in America, a history I hope to begin to explore by presenting several literary and cultural texts from the 19th century. Literary texts will include Caroline Kirkland, A New Home—Who’ll Follow, Henry Thoreau, Walden, Louisa May Alcott, Work, Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, Frank Norris, McTeague, and Abraham Cahan, Yekl. Theoretical Texts will include Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, and essays by Henri Levebvre, Lori Merish, Bill Brown, and others.