America at 250: Short Stories Through the Years

Study American short stories through the years: examine America’s earliest writers wrestling with a young country’s identity; analyze stories from the frontier; and discover voices that wrestle with freedom and oppression, classism and conformity, and community and isolation.  Analyzing elements of craft, we will explore how these stories remain relevant in our modern lives.  Beginning with Washington Irving, whose short stories became our country’s first bestselling literature, we will engage with stories through the eras and into the 21st century.