ENG 389: Special Topics in 20th Century Literature: Six Versions of America

FALL 2026: Special Topics in 20th-Century American Literature: Six Versions of America In 1630, during the Arbella's voyage to New England, John Winthrop, founder and first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, delivered a sermon titled "A Model of Christian Charity" to the Puritans assembled on board. In the most-quoted phrase from the sermon, Winthrop declared, "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." The thrust of the sermon was the need to build and maintain a community devoted to Christian ideals, which Winthrop argued would help the new arrivals survive in an untamed wilderness. 350 years later President Reagan would modify Winthrop's phrase, referring to the United States as a "shining city upon a hill," morphing Winthrop's insistence on community into a celebration of individual freedom, material prosperity, and American power (military, political, and financial). Reagan's celebratory adaptation of the phrase brought forth an entirely different vision of America, one diametrically opposed to Winthrop's: the individual vs. community, material prosperity vs. spiritual devotion, power vs. Christian love. This course examines six recent books by American writers, each offering a different version of America, often pitting a self-reliant individual against emblematic political, geographical, and social landscapes, and revealing the constraints and limitations masked by Reagan's upbeat formulation. We will practice the art of explication, leading to two short papers, and our discussions will culminate in a final paper in which students compare two of these books to each other: Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections; Christie Hodgen, Boy Meets Girl; Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men; Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories; Philip Roth, The Plot Against America; George Saunders, Vigil.