ENGL 1038. American Dreamers

Explores the enduring power of the American dream—the idea that individual merit and hard work create economic opportunities and upward social mobility—as shaped by literature, drama, and film over the past two centuries. Studies representations of a “better, richer, and fuller life” (James Truslow Adams) in America, in dialogue with dissenting accounts by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Stephen Karam, among others. Other authors may include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O’Connor, Hunter S. Thompson, and Barbara Ehrenreich, joined by selected films such as It’s a Wonderful Life and American Psycho.