Literature from the U.S Civil War to the present. Examines significant works representing Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism in literary technique and responding to the evolution and tensions of a multicultural society, including the labor, immigration, beats, civil rights, feminist, and lesbian-gay experiences. Authors include Kate Chopin, Mark Twain, T.S. Eliot, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, William Faulkner, Robert Frost, Claude McKay, Allen Ginsberg, Tennessee Williams, Ralph Ellison, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, and others. Students will read and learn the characteristics of different literary genres including poetry, fiction, essay, and memoir. Basic conventions of essay writing as well as research skills and MLA documentation will be reviewed. Students will write reading responses in order to analyze and work through the literature during the course of the semester. A midterm and final examination will test knowledge of literary periods and their characteristics, as well as significant themes in the literature. One analytical essay, done in drafts, as well as a research paper is required.
