ENGL 104 - Supervidere: Surveillance Cultures of the American Canon

FC ARHU

4 credits
These days someone is probably watching you: followers on social media, operators of security cameras, that pesky elf on a shelf. But was it always so? This survey course considers how surveillance is essential to the development of American literature, culture, and society from the colonial period to the present. The word “survey” itself comes from the Latin “supervidere,” meaning to oversee or supervise. As we survey American literature ranging from colonial-era captivity narratives to Edgar Allen Poe’s nineteenth-century gothic and Thomas Pynchon’s twentieth-century postmodernism, we will consider why watching and being watched are common themes in the American canon.
Prerequisites & Notes: Students may count one 100-Level course toward the English major. This course may also be of interest to CAST majors.