ENGLISH American Literature & American Dreams Professor: Paul Lukacs The poet Langston Hughes called the promise that America is different from other places, “the dream the dreamers dream,” and he lamented that the America of this dream “never was America” to him. In this class, we shall explore separate, sometimes conflicting versions of that dream, as well as responses to them, in the work of classic authors such as Franklin, Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Warren. Students will ask both what American dreamers have dreamed and why they have dreamed it. The class is open only to incoming first-year students who receive credit for EN101, "Understanding Literature," by earning scores of 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition Test. Paul Lukacs, a graduate of Kenyon College and the Johns Hopkins University, has taught in the department of English for 29 years. He previously directed Loyola’s Honors Program. He lectures and writes about many aspects of American culture, and is the author of American Vintage (Houghton Mifflin, 2000) and The Great Wines of America (WW Norton, 2006). | |