ENGL 450
Melville, Mark Twain, and Ellison Spring 2013
Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed AFR 450
This is not the current course catalog

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As an epigraph to his novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison selects a quotation from Herman Melville’s story, “Benito Cereno.” In the prologue to Invisible Man, Ellison invokes a sermon that appears briefly in the opening chapter of Moby-Dick. In his essays on comedy and American culture, Ellison comments trenchantly on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Melville and Mark Twain were, in many obvious ways, as different as two writers can be. Nonetheless, they also have many surprising similarities, and it is not difficult to understand why both are so important to Ellison. This course will examine the novels, stories, and essays of these three writers, with particular attention to the themes that they have in common and to the traits that make each of them distinctive. Race, slavery, epistemology, and the nature of American democracy are among those themes.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 25
Expected: 12
Class#: 3630
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: a journal and a 15-page paper
Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, or a score of 5 on the Advanced Placement examination in English Literature or a 6 or 7 on the International Baccalaureate
Distributions: Division I Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ENGL; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under AFR
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENGL 450 Division I AFR 450 Division II
Attributes: ENGL Literary Histories B
MAST Interdepartmental Electives

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