This course will examine both traditional and nontraditional writings from the Civil War to the present. We will examine post-Civil War literature and the myriad, often contradictory desires--economic, aesthetic, sexual, spiritual, and intellectual--to which it gives expression. The course will provide a framework within which students may examine the literature in an historical context. As does American Literature I, the course stresses the diversity of experience and poetics that characterizes American literature. In addition, students will trace the evolution of important literary movements and philosophical influences, as well as the metamorphosis of certain genres over time.
