LITR101

History and literature are intimately connected: every piece of literature is a product of history, and history itself is nothing less than storytelling. This introductory course examines literature’s relationship with history and is intended for general education students as well as those considering the Literature major. Students will be trained in historical approaches to the study of literature. Students will survey an historically and culturally broad body of literature in order to explore how literary texts, as primary sources, reflect and respond to historical change. This course draws upon the work of cultural historians to examine how literary forms and contents change along with political, economic, and technological changes. Students in this course will engage in historiography, which interrogates, equally, the history of writing and the writing of history. History and literature, perhaps more than any other disciplines, require students to be attentive to problems and to ask: which citizens have been authorized to tell stories, about whom are these stories told, whose stories have been preserved, and what factors (economic, political, technological, epistemological) determine how such stories are narrated oriented, and received?