ClassInfo

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Telling stories is a fundamental part of human existence; we all do it, all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are drawn to stories, and we use them to make sense of the world around us and our experiences. Thus they are a central component of the ways we negotiate, continuously, between our private selves and the many public roles we play (and, indeed, sometimes the line between public and private is not easy to spot). I am interested in moments when a person's life intersects with something much bigger than themselves: a massive social change, a historical event, another person's very public experiences. How does that affect us, as private citizens?

In our three central readings, we will encounter these issues in a variety of ways. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich tells her own story of experiencing, temporarily, a life of low-wage labor, but she also tells the stories of her co-workers for whom low-wage labor is an ongoing fact of life. Susan Collins' dystopic novel The Hunger Games tells a story of one possible future for us all, but also shows her protagonists struggling against the public story that is being built around them. Lin-Manuel Miranda's ground-breaking musical Hamilton uses modern storytelling techniques to retell the story of the founding of our nation, and shows the figures at the center of those events struggling to find their own stories within that larger narrative.

To be successful in all of the aspects of this course, you will need to display active, empathetic engagement;
independent, critical thinking; organization and motivation.

A few logistical requirements:

1. You must have hard copy editions of the Ehrenreich and Collins texts. Electronic texts are not acceptable.

2. We will also be listening to and reading the annotated lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton; the annotated lyrics are available online, and I will provide links to a number of ways to listen to the songs. Thus, while I will encourage you to buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the musical, I am not requiring it.

0A

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Telling stories is a fundamental part of human existence; we all do it, all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are drawn to stories, and we use them to make sense of the world around us and our experiences. Thus they are a central component of the ways we negotiate, continuously, between our private selves and the many public roles we play (and, indeed, sometimes the line between public and private is not easy to spot). I am interested in moments when a person's life intersects with something much bigger than themselves: a massive social change, a historical event, another person's very public experiences. How does that affect us, as private citizens?

In our three central readings, we will encounter these issues in a variety of ways. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich tells her own story of experiencing, temporarily, a life of low-wage labor, but she also tells the stories of her co-workers for whom low-wage labor is an ongoing fact of life. Susan Collins' dystopic novel The Hunger Games tells a story of one possible future for us all, but also shows her protagonists struggling against the public story that is being built around them. Lin-Manuel Miranda's ground-breaking musical Hamilton uses modern storytelling techniques to retell the story of the founding of our nation, and shows the figures at the center of those events struggling to find their own stories within that larger narrative.

To be successful in all of the aspects of this course, you will need to display active, empathetic engagement;
independent, critical thinking; organization and motivation.

A few logistical requirements:

1. You must have hard copy editions of the Ehrenreich and Collins texts. Electronic texts are not acceptable.

2. We will also be listening to and reading the annotated lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton; the annotated lyrics are available online, and I will provide links to a number of ways to listen to the songs. Thus, while I will encourage you to buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the musical, I am not requiring it.

0A

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course offers a unique opportunity to consider how larger social themes in literature are visible in the world around us. Implementing a significant community-engaged learning (CEL) component (24 hours over the course of the semester), this section of Literature and Public Life will ask you to examine a variety of issues, including but not limited to, immigration, public health, language, education, and civic engagement both through literary texts as well as through your experiences with your chosen partner organizations. In other words, we will think through the many ways in which literature--in all its forms and definitions--intersects, comments, engages and complicates public life and social issues inside and outside the classroom. Some overarching issues I hope we can think about is, our ever-evolving definitions of "public" and "private", our ability to recognize our own place in social engagement, and a growing sense of how storytelling (by others as well as ourselves) has the capacity to be both inclusive and exclusive. In addition to the CEL requirement, this course will also include reading, writing and analysis assignments, as well as a heavy emphasis on lively class participation. An optional Independent Project track is also available at the instructor's discretion.

Telling stories is a fundamental part of human existence; we all do it, all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are drawn to stories, and we use them to make sense of the world around us and our experiences. Thus they are a central component of the ways we negotiate, continuously, between our private selves and the many public roles we play (and, indeed, sometimes the line between public and private is not easy to spot). I am interested in moments when a person's life intersects with something much bigger than themselves: a massive social change, a historical event, another person's very public experiences. How does that affect us, as private citizens?

In our three central readings, we will encounter these issues in a variety of ways. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich tells her own story of experiencing, temporarily, a life of low-wage labor, but she also tells the stories of her co-workers for whom low-wage labor is an ongoing fact of life. Susan Collins' dystopic novel The Hunger Games tells a story of one possible future for us all, but also shows her protagonists struggling against the public story that is being built around them. Lin-Manuel Miranda's ground-breaking musical Hamilton uses modern storytelling techniques to retell the story of the founding of our nation, and shows the figures at the center of those events struggling to find their own stories within that larger narrative.

To be successful in all of the aspects of this course, you will need to display active, empathetic engagement;
independent, critical thinking; organization and motivation.

A few logistical requirements:

1. You must have hard copy editions of the Ehrenreich and Collins texts. Electronic texts are not acceptable.

2. We will also be listening to and reading the annotated lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton; the annotated lyrics are available online, and I will provide links to a number of ways to listen to the songs. Thus, while I will encourage you to buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the musical, I am not requiring it.

0A

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Telling stories is a fundamental part of human existence; we all do it, all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are drawn to stories, and we use them to make sense of the world around us and our experiences. Thus they are a central component of the ways we negotiate, continuously, between our private selves and the many public roles we play (and, indeed, sometimes the line between public and private is not easy to spot). I am interested in moments when a person's life intersects with something much bigger than themselves: a massive social change, a historical event, another person's very public experiences. How does that affect us, as private citizens?

In our three central readings, we will encounter these issues in a variety of ways. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich tells her own story of experiencing, temporarily, a life of low-wage labor, but she also tells the stories of her co-workers for whom low-wage labor is an ongoing fact of life. Susan Collins' dystopic novel The Hunger Games tells a story of one possible future for us all, but also shows her protagonists struggling against the public story that is being built around them. Lin-Manuel Miranda's ground-breaking musical Hamilton uses modern storytelling techniques to retell the story of the founding of our nation, and shows the figures at the center of those events struggling to find their own stories within that larger narrative.

To be successful in all of the aspects of this course, you will need to display active, empathetic engagement;
independent, critical thinking; organization and motivation.

A few logistical requirements:

1. You must have hard copy editions of the Ehrenreich and Collins texts. Electronic texts are not acceptable.

2. We will also be listening to and reading the annotated lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton; the annotated lyrics are available online, and I will provide links to a number of ways to listen to the songs. Thus, while I will encourage you to buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the musical, I am not requiring it.

0A

This particular section of the course will primarily read texts from about 400 years ago, such as one or two Shakespeare plays, Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666), Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis (1627), Milton's Areopagitica (1644), and some Montaigne essays (1592). We will read excerpts from Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1638), and Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel (1564), and Thomas More's Utopia (‎1551). We will also read some even older texts, including an excerpt from Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies (1405). We will close the semester with a book by our contemporary, Annie Dillard's For the Time Being (1999).

There is an optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

What does it really mean to be a responsible citizen and to engage in public discourse? How do we construct our public identities, reconcile our private and public selves, and gain access to the true beliefs and opinions of the many selves and identities which populate our social networks? In the aftermath of possibly the most acrimonious election cycle in US history, these questions acquire an even greater urgency. This class will seek answers in three interrelated places: in literature, in literary expression, and in the literary-like behaviors with which we broadcast our beliefs on social media. We will explore how literature both contributes to the creation of public opinion and influences the "politically correct" and "politically incorrect" attitudes that we use to navigate the contested sites of individual freedom, civic responsibility, and social duty. In addition to studying the power of words in public contexts, students will have the opportunity, through a service-learning project, to turn words into active community engagement. Our wide range of texts and genres -- stories and essays, novels and plays, poems and tweets -- will give us a strong literary basis to ground our discussion of the truths and fictions we all tell ourselves while negotiating our personal worldviews in private and public spaces.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Telling stories is a fundamental part of human existence; we all do it, all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. We are drawn to stories, and we use them to make sense of the world around us and our experiences. Thus they are a central component of the ways we negotiate, continuously, between our private selves and the many public roles we play (and, indeed, sometimes the line between public and private is not easy to spot). I am interested in moments when a person's life intersects with something much bigger than themselves: a massive social change, a historical event, another person's very public experiences. How does that affect us, as private citizens?

In our three central readings, we will encounter these issues in a variety of ways. In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich tells her own story of experiencing, temporarily, a life of low-wage labor, but she also tells the stories of her co-workers for whom low-wage labor is an ongoing fact of life. Susan Collins' dystopic novel The Hunger Games tells a story of one possible future for us all, but also shows her protagonists struggling against the public story that is being built around them. Lin-Manuel Miranda's ground-breaking musical Hamilton uses modern storytelling techniques to retell the story of the founding of our nation, and shows the figures at the center of those events struggling to find their own stories within that larger narrative.

To be successful in all of the aspects of this course, you will need to display active, empathetic engagement;
independent, critical thinking; organization and motivation.

A few logistical requirements:

1. You must have hard copy editions of the Ehrenreich and Collins texts. Electronic texts are not acceptable.

2. We will also be listening to and reading the annotated lyrics of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton; the annotated lyrics are available online, and I will provide links to a number of ways to listen to the songs. Thus, while I will encourage you to buy the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the musical, I am not requiring it.

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Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

SECTION SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION:

In this course we will navigate and investigate the types of narrative, such as biography and autobiography, that rely on a pact with the reader in regard to what Sidonie Smith calls the
"vital statistics" of the subject narrated, a pact that depends on those "rules of evidence that link the world of the narrative with a historical world outside the narrative." But we will do so through texts that require the reader to also be a viewer - namely, COMICS. By focusing on a medium that is both a unique art form and a hybrid of word and image we will use our readings, discussion, writing, and service learning project to explore the ways we tell stories about ourselves and about others within the context of a readerly pact that assumes some historical and "real world"
veracity. We will also explore the way that the telling and/or visualization of those stories transform their subjects.

We have the unique opportunity to take advantage of placements working at and with partner organizations around the cities through the community service learning program at the University. There is no better way to learn civic engagement, to connect to the stories of others, and to discover your own story than by doing service in the community to which you belong. It can be easy at a school so large as the University of Minnesota to imagine that you belong to the University community, over and above the city in which the University is located. This is a story about your life that is encouraged, to a certain extent, by the school itself. But it's not the only story that you might be able to tell about the communities you engage with on a daily basis.

The course takes a tri-fold approach of focusing on (1) comics as our medium, (2) life writing - biography and autobiography - as our genre, and (3) public life and community engagement as our impetus.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

This course explores how literary language builds the collective knowledge, shared reality, and civic relationships that make up public life. Literature's power in the public sphere goes far beyond the quiet, solitary experience of reading. We will investigate how telling stories, documenting events, imagining possibilities, communicating ideals, representing conflict, and even creating fictional characters contribute to public life. Through a wide variety of texts, we will reflect on the nature of public life and on how reading and writing build civic relationships and democratic potential. This course will also offer you two tracks for actively engaging in public life. A service­-learning option will give you the experience of building literacy, developing skills in communication and public media, and strengthening roles in work and family. This recommended learning framework can engage your role as a citizen, broaden the impact of your education, and help you explore potential professional interests. Alternatively, an individually designed public project will prompt you to consider the links between literary/media culture, personal action, and public life, and to make your own intervention in these fields. To succeed in all areas of this class you must display active engagement, independent thinking and motivation, and organization.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

Humor is not typically acknowledged as an art form equivalent to drama in contemporary American society. When we want to be entertained we watch a comedy, but when we want to think deeply about something we turn to drama. However, humorous works, and more specifically literature and popular culture, have a profound capacity to encourage social change. This course proposes to examine how humor - and especially irony, satire, and parody - both entertains us and leads us, as readers/viewers, to improve the society in which we live. With a special focus on American satire and irony, we investigate how satirical expressions can interrogate cultural values, challenge authorities, and empower. Possible novels include works by Joseph Heller, Paul Beatty, Margaret Atwood, and others; essays, films, blogs, parody social media accounts, and other artifacts will also be considered.

This section of Literature and Public Life will be organized around the question of what, if anything, literature can do to alleviate suffering in our society. Does reading about fictional people make us more empathetic and thus more likely to support reforms to aid real people? Do literature's imaginative worlds provide models of a better, more humane civilization? Does the critical attention literary texts require from their readers make us more intelligent political and social observers? On other hand: Is reading literature mere escapism or connoisseurship that dulls the social conscience? Does the emotion provoked by art distract us from the cold, rational, systemic thinking needed to organize or re-organize society? Are we attacking the freedom of the imagination or of the individual when we ask writers and artists to be accountable to the public? We will attempt to answer these difficult questions about the relationship of literature to public life by reading a selection of major twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels that address themselves, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, to the question of the writer's and the reader's responsibilities when faced with war, genocide, poverty, totalitarianism, sexual violence, mental illness, racism, and other social ills. We will likely read novels by Herman Melville Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro and a selection of critical essays. A service-learning option (alongside other written assignments in this writing-intensive course) will help us to describe and evaluate the relationship between our fictional and non-fictional lives.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.

This section of Literature and Public Life will be organized around the question of what, if anything, literature can do to alleviate suffering in our society. Does reading about fictional people make us more empathetic and thus more likely to support reforms to aid real people? Do literature's imaginative worlds provide models of a better, more humane civilization? Does the critical attention literary texts require from their readers make us more intelligent political and social observers? On other hand: Is reading literature mere escapism or connoisseurship that dulls the social conscience? Does the emotion provoked by art distract us from the cold, rational, systemic thinking needed to organize or re-organize society? Are we attacking the freedom of the imagination or of the individual when we ask writers and artists to be accountable to the public? We will attempt to answer these difficult questions about the relationship of literature to public life by reading a selection of major twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels that address themselves, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, to the question of the writer's and the reader's responsibilities when faced with war, genocide, poverty, totalitarianism, sexual violence, mental illness, racism, and other social ills. We will likely read novels by Herman Melville Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro and a selection of critical essays. A service-learning option (alongside other written assignments in this writing-intensive course) will help us to describe and evaluate the relationship between our fictional and non-fictional lives.

Meaning/practice of citizenship. Historical themes, contemporary issues in American public life: access of citizenship, tensions between social duties and individual freedoms, role of moral values in public life. Diverse literary materials. Optional service-learning component.