Two topics are offered for 2010/2011. Students may take one or both for credit. Fall 2010: American Crime. The historical and cultural development of the American crime story from colonial times to the present, focusing on the twentieth century. Major authors include Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, and Chester Himes. Spring 2011: American Renaissance Poetry. Drawing on a transatlantic and comparative perspective, this seminar traces the development of Romanticism in American poetry as a movement shaped by the history of conquest, revolution, slavery, industrialization, and civil war. Readings by Freneau, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, and others.