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ENGLISH LITERATURE (L14)  (Dept. Info)Arts & Sciences  (Policies)SP2025
L14 E Lit 302The Great American Novel3.0 Units
Description:What is the Great American Novel? This is a question that has been hotly debated for decades, from Harriet Beecher Stowe to Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner to Toni Morrison. It's a question with a hundred answers and no answers at all-a question of taste, of prejudice, of time. But what is a "Great American Novel"? What does it look like? What do we expect of it? What have Americans throughout history wanted it to say about America? These are questions we can, and will, answer in this course. As elusive a thing as the Great American Novel has been, the idea of the Great American Novel has a long and fascinating history that mirrors all the major movements of American literature from the American Renaissance to the present. Piecing together the story of this dream, this cultural quest with all of its inclusions and exclusions, is a way of telling a shadow history of American society. The Great American Novel tradition is something like a fossil record of America's shifting norms in relation to race, gender, sexuality, domesticity, democracy, citizenship, immigration, labor, capitalism, and war. And so each presumptive Great American Novel is a new variation in an evolving genre and a new thesis statement of American grandiosity or guilt. By cataloguing shared themes, conventions, and preoccupations, and by paying close attention to a handful of likely-and unlikely-candidates, this course will ask big questions about American exceptionalism, American tragedy, and the role of art in American culture. Authors will likely include Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Carmen Boullosa, among others. Satisfies the Twentieth Century and later requirement
Attributes:A&S IQ: HUMArch: HUMArt: HUMBU: HUMEN: H
Instruction Type:Classroom instruction Grade Options:CPA Fees:
Course Type:HomeSame As:L98 302AFrequency:None / History
SecDays       TimeBuilding / RoomInstructorFinal ExamSeatsEnrollWaits
01M-W----10:00A-11:20ASeigle / 111 MaciakPaper/Project/Take Home25251
Actions:BooksSyllabus
Syllabi are provided to students to support their course planning; refer to the syllabus for constraints on use.
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Home/Ident

A course may be either a “Home” course or an “Ident” course.

A “Home” course is a course that is created, maintained and “owned” by one academic department (aka the “Home” department). The “Home” department is primarily responsible for the decision making and logistical support for the course and instructor.

An “Ident” course is the exact same course as the “Home” (i.e. same instructor, same class time, etc), but is simply being offered to students through another department for purposes of registering under a different department and course number.

Students should, whenever possible, register for their courses under the department number toward which they intend to count the course. For example, an AFAS major should register for the course "Africa: Peoples and Cultures" under its Ident number, L90 306B, whereas an Anthropology major should register for the same course under its Home number, L48 306B.

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Q=ME Q (Medical School)

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