AML 4111 - Spring 2025 - Roberts

The great struggle of America in the 19th century was over slavery and race in our society. Who is and is not a "real" American? In this course, we'll read work published before the Civil War, including Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and Edgar Allan Poe. Our goal is to reach a better understanding of the complex, ongoing struggle for equality as expressed by some of the most significant writers of the 19th century. We will learn about the history of the United States in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, which was not a period of peace and tranquility, but marked by slave insurrections, economic changes, and instability. This course satisfied the requirement in genre.