Studies in American Literature: Gilded Age Literature (online, 2nd 8-wk session)

This course looks at a cross-section at what writers in the US were publishing from the end of the Civil War to the end of World War I, including muckraking journalism, sensationalist popular writing, literary realism and regionalism, and writing by immigrants, African Americans, and Indigenous people. We will be looking at the bifurcation of literary and popular writing in the period, the significance and effects of investigative journalism, the popularity of genres like the western and crime writing. Our main focus will be on how the different forms of writing in question respond to political, cultural, and economic conflicts roiling the era.