ENGL 269

What defines individualism? How does one become self-reliant? Is selfishness inherently wrong? What do I owe society and what can it demand of me? How are group attachments – national, racial, gendered – formed and maintained? These are questions that novelists, poets, and essayists take up with intensity. This course examines why everyone – from Joe Biden to Donald Trump to philosophers to political pundits – turn to literary works for answers to how best to organize ourselves.