Identity in American Literature of the 1940s, Harvard University

Much American literature of the 1940s is concerned with issues of identity that resonate across the decades – race, gender, relationship of individuals to groups that help define them. Yet there are variations on these themes that may not be so familiar and that may give some new perspective on contemporary perceptions of identity in society. We will read novels by six writers – three still well-known today (William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Richard Wright), and three considerably less so (John Horne Burns, Ann Petry, and Isaac Rosenfeld) – to explore some of these themes. Each student will be asked to give some introductory comments at one session to help begin the discussion of the novel assigned for that day. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.