Our course theme will focus on the gift and threat of mobility as it is configured in a range of travel narratives from the 19th and 20th centuries. To put it plainly, we will ask how tales of travel, migration, adventure, and the "open road" explore the freedoms and coercions of modern life. Our readings will carry us from the Happy Hobo's steel rails at the turn of the century to the post-apocalyptic superhighway and beyond. As a part of this inquiry, we will ask how regional difference is imagined and produced in the context of the allegedly world-shrinking, culturally-homogenizing forces of global trade, communications, and travel. We will contextualize our readings using a number of relevant essays, films, and short stories--including, keeping our fingers crossed, the October theatre release of the film adaptation of McCarthy's The Road.

Course requirements: Your final grade will be based on your demonstration of your completion and comprehension of reading assignments through your regular contribution to class discussion, GoPost reflections, and a number of writing assignments. Note that this is a "W" course, and as such will require you to produce 10-15 pages of polished, out-of-class writing, in the form of a longer paper with a required revision OR two or more short papers, likewise with revisions.

Required texts:

• Reitman, Dr. Ben L. Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha.
• Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man
• Brautigan, Richard. Trout Fishing in America
• McCarthy, Cormac. The Road
• A small selection of short stories which will be on reserve at the UW libraries.