Local Color: Multi-Ethnic American Literature, 1880-1920

American literary regionalism ushered in new stylistic forms focused on characters, dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to specific regions. This “local color writing” emerged, in part, as a response to the rapid growth and changing face of an industrializing nation. This course positions itself at the center of this tense moment in America’s history, reading works that pursue both diverse regional and ethnic interests. In particular, we will primarily read women authors and critics to focus on how gender and sexuality intersect with race as it relates to the question nation (re)building.