Writers on both ends of the political spectrum have long imagined lower class life as a chaotic alternate reality governed by nasty, brutish necessity. The middle class, meanwhile, has long served as the 'normal' world which stands in harmonious contrast to the "gritty realities" of life on the mean streets, the slum, or the menacingly masculine American outback.
Yet if the loose moralities and lawbreaking of the organized criminal, the back-holler yeoman, the factory worker, or the shell-shocked sleuth on the beat in the naked city repel some readers, and reaffirm their own "purpose driven lives," they also attract them with representations of a life full of anarchic possibilities and pleasures. And while middle class life, with its grinning nuclear families, purebred dogs, and big green lawns has long stood as an image of fulfillment for some, it has also represented its opposite for others.
Our class this quarter will track some of these trends across a range of novels which either propose to reveal (and revel in) the hardboiled terrains of underclass underworlds, or which turn the 'unblinking' ethnographic eye back on the middle class--often with profane and hilarious results. We'll also view a number of films which may include Little Caesar, Gang War, Happiness, Deliverance, Dogville, and/or Manda Bala.
Course requirements: Your final grade will be based on your demonstration of you 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 graded, 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:
-McTeague
-Red Harvest
-Babbitt
-White Noise
-Disgrace