American Literature and the Archive
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
Why are some literary works from the past reprinted, anthologized, and considered worthy of study, but not others? Why are some works “lost” and some “rediscovered,” while others simply fall out of favor? What is the relationship between the canon and the archive? Focusing on the relationship between authorship and status in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literary history, we will use rare books and archival materials from JHU libraries and digital collections to investigate the writings, publications, archives, and legacies of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes.
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