These courses emphasize close reading and writing about contemporary American literature. They focus upon novels and plays from the mid-1960s to recent times while aiming to provide students with a solid foundation for interpretation and literary analysis. Playwrights include Sam Shepard and Christopher Durang; fiction writers include Khalid Hosseini, Ursula LeGuin, Kurt Vonnegut, Jerzy Kosinski, and Amy Tan.

Writing intensive.