This course examines the concept of American literary form by reading across a variety of texts. We begin the course with a reading of a slave narrative and end with an investigation of what has been called a Magical Realist novel. Along the way, we will examine the relationship between the historical contexts in which a text is written and the texts themselves. No doubt American literary form looks differently in the mid-nineteenth century than it does at the beginning of the twenty-first. Yet we will also consider the ways that earlier texts anticipate later formal strategies, and the ways that contemporary texts include traditional narrative techniques and styles.

In addition to a course reader, texts may include: Douglass, Frederick. *Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave* ISBN: 9780674034013. Chopin, Kate. *The Awakening* ISBN: 9780393960570. Anderson, Sherwood. *Winesburg, Ohio* ISBN: 9780393967951. Wright, Richard. *Native Son* ISBN: 9780060837563. Diaz, Junot. *The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* ISBN: 9781594483295.