AMERICAN FICTION (1845-1970): STUDIES IN COMPASSION (CL2031)

Surveys American fiction from 1845-1970, with a particular focus on compassion as an intersection for literary, political, and racial discourses and practices. Considers how fictions are positioned as objects of compassion, and how fiction addresses compassion as a social, moral, and political phenomenon. Texts may include works by Frederic Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Agnes Smedley, Richard Wright, and Joyce Carol Oates.