ENGL 204 | The American Dream: Loss and Renewal

This course for non-majors takes as its starting point the question: "What is the American Dream?" Who has achieved it and who hasn't? Is it a singular dream or a tapestry of dreams made of many threads? By reading texts from a variety of genres and cultural perspectives, the course examines the themes of identity, betrayal, and redemption. The course will examine the ways these most central of human experiences can be viewed as distinctly American. Authors studied may include Franklin, Thoreau, Whitman, Twain, as well as Morrison, Silko, and Otsuka.