By the end of the course, students should have achieved the following objectives:
1. Experienced a close reading of work by four important Southern writers.
2. Gained a stronger grasp of the concepts and vocabulary used to discuss literature in the English-speaking world.
3. Gained familiarity with the social and historical context of Modern Southern literature.
4. Become familiar with Southern literature’s key themes and aesthetic concerns.
5. Gained a clear picture of how Southern literature fits into the larger map of Modern American writing.

By the end of the course, students should have achieved the following objectives:
1. Experienced a close reading of work by four important Southern writers.
2. Gained a stronger grasp of the concepts and vocabulary used to discuss literature in the English-speaking world.
3. Gained familiarity with the social and historical context of Modern Southern literature.
4. Become familiar with Southern literature’s key themes and aesthetic concerns.
5. Gained a clear picture of how Southern literature fits into the larger map of Modern American writing.

In this course we will read a number of key figures in modern American Southern literature, with an emphasis on the range and diversity of Southern writing in a variety of genres: the novel, the short story, memoir and drama. The writers included are African-American and white; male and female; gay and straight; middle-class and poor; rural and urban. They draw on the so-called Southern gothic legacy of Faulkner (Williams and McCullers), on American realism (Wright) and on the lyrical and imagistic (Welty). All of them have had a profound impact on the course of American literature as a whole.

In this course we will read a number of key figures in modern American Southern literature, with an emphasis on the range and diversity of Southern writing in a variety of genres: the novel, the short story, memoir and drama. The writers included are African-American and white; male and female; gay and straight; middle-class and poor; rural and urban. They draw on the so-called Southern gothic legacy of Faulkner (Williams and McCullers), on American reality (Wright) and on the lyrical and imagistic (Welty). All of them have had a profound impact on the course of American literature as a whole.

Richard Wright, Black Boy (memoir)
Tennessee Williams, Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (drama)
Carson McCullers, A Member of the Wedding (novel)
Eudora Welty, (selected short stories)
Plus supplementary materials (short stories, criticism, biography, memoir, history) posted on Moodle

Richard Wright, Black Boy (memoir)
Tennessee Williams, Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (drama)
Carson McCullers, A Member of the Wedding (novel)
Eudora Welty, (selected short stories)
Plus supplementary materials (short stories, criticism, biography, memoir, history) posted on Moodle