AML 4111 Roberts Fall 2022

The ghosts of the past, the cruelty of slavery, the madness of politicians, the nature of obsession, and the nature of sexuality: Novelists such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville dove deep into our psychic ocean of guilt, sin, and repression and came out with brilliant works of art that still inspire (and haunt) such writers as Toni Morrison, Jeff VanderMeer, and Nikole Hannah-Jones. What was going on in America between the 1830s and 1900 that ignited such an explosion of great novels? We’ll try to find some answers—or at least identify the most exciting questions.

This course satisfies the genre requirement for LMC majors.